


Hellhound on My Trail

by ThusSpokeRaven



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: AU, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood Drinking, Death and Resurrection, F/F, Femslash, Lesbian, Lesbian Sex, Love, Nordic witch, Original Character(s), Rituals, Romance, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Sex, Soulmates, Violence, Witches, ancient power, ancient witch, coven - Freeform, foxxay - Freeform, goodeday, mysterious power, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-09-28 01:21:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 23,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17173151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThusSpokeRaven/pseuds/ThusSpokeRaven
Summary: An ancient evil sets its sight on Misty.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

 **Gotta keep movin'**  
**Gotta keep movin'**  
**Hellhound on my trail**  
**Hellhound on my trail**

**Written by Robert Johnson**

**Performed by Fleetwood Mac**

* * *

 

Misty breathed out watching her breath turn white and curl into the crisp air like a snake looking for a place to lay teeth.  Her jaw jumped with her tension. “I gotta say I prefer what we call winter,” she said as she curled her hands tighter into the deep pockets of the parka that Cordelia had rounded up for her use. She was not a fan of the cold and dim evening light in this out of the way spot.

 

Cordelia watched as the street lamps came on down the long lonely road just outside the small town where a young woman had been caught on camera tossing people around without touching them.  “I can do without the snow myself but we need to be here. This woman, if she is what that video suggests, is a danger not just to herself but to all the witches. We have to get to her and convince her to come with us.”

 

The swamp witch’s lips pressed tightly on her concern a moment or two.  “I just don’t understand why you’d bring me instead of someone like Zoe.  She knows stuff and when she is on a roll she can talk a charging rhino into stoppin’ and thinkin’ things over.”  Misty crouched down and picked up a nickel just visible under a rotted railroad tie. Her thumb absently rubbed the mud and slush off the metal as she stood.  She was tempted to hop into the rental car and drive far and fast away from these dead trees and dead plants and dead feeling air.

 

The Supreme chuckled and looked into the trees at the edge of the deepening gloom.  “You were on your own for a long time Misty. You have a lot more in common with this witch than most of us.”  She pulled Misty’s jacket tighter around her and pulled the zipper all the way up with a grin.

 

Misty felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise up.  “Miss Cordelia? I’m thinkin' that we may not be lookin' to recruit her,” she said, the air suddenly becoming rocks in her chest as her anxiety level suddenly rose.

 

Cordelia looked at the ethereal beauty with deep concern.  That tone could be alarming. “Misty?”

 

“She’s here and she’s watchin' and she smells darker than an oil slick on a stagnant pond.”  Misty turned and let slip a white light to protect herself without thought. She felt like something was clicking claws into her grave as she backed onto the road toward their rental car.

 

Cordelia stepped in close and looked over her shoulder to look at a young woman leaning in the trees with a knowing smile and ancient, ancient eyes.  “Hello. I’m…”

 

“Cordelia Goode, Supreme of the Salem bitches.”  The dark haired woman stepped out from the trees and looked at the two witches.  Her green-blue eyes looked Misty up and down and lingered at the edges of her body where the light was most visible.  “Do I make you nervous?” she asked Misty in a soft voice that whispered the distance like snake scales sliding over wood.

 

“You aren’t a seventeen year old high school girl with an out of control new power,” Misty said quietly.  “You were lookin’ to lure us.”

 

Cordelia looked from Misty to the other woman.  “Who are you?”

 

“Me?” she asked motioning at her chest.  “I’m Ylva.” She stepped onto the large rocks that lined the train tracks.  “The young woman I’m wearing?” She waved her fingers dismissively. “Beck, Bex, whatever.  Really who cares? Barely a candle.” Her short dark hair ruffled in the cold breeze. Her slow appreciative look at Misty Day made it clear that the candle didn't even compare.

 

“The video would bring a witch wanting to train or drain someone that young and powerful,” summed Cordelia.  She was growing angry at the way Ylva was looking at her companion.

 

“So it did,” Ylva purred.  “You came, and brought me a beautiful new skin suit to wear.”  She smiled at Misty who stepped back.

 

Cordelia stepped forward.  “She’s not yours” she said firmly.

 

The deep red painted lips curled.  “Not yet,” Ylva purred.

 

Steel was in the Supreme’s eyes. “Not ever.”

 

Ylva lifted her nose and closed her eyes.  “I have your scent now little girl. We wolves so love a good hunt.”  She looked at Cordelia. “Never worn a Supreme’s skin but then you Salem bitches aren’t to my taste.”  She looked at Misty. “Tenderize a witch like you? Tasty.” She smiled. “Go on and get your head start little girl.  I’m coming.” Ylva stepped back into the gloom, her toothy smile showing like a Cheshire cat’s in the coming darkness.

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

* * *

 

 

Cordelia looked over at a very quiet Misty who stared pensively out the window, a magazine laying forgotten on her lap as she sat across from her in the private plane she'd chartered for the trip.  “I would never have let her get near you even if she had the ability,” the Supreme vowed in a comforting tone of voice as she picked up and folded the magazine into the pouch nearby.  She watched the other woman as she slowly turned toward her.

 

Misty looked at Cordelia with uncertainty in her eyes and a tightness in her knuckles on the seat arm.  It was rare to see the usually relaxed woman in this state, and vaguely disturbing to the older woman. “I’ve never smelled anything like that before.  I’m bettin’ she ain’t a bit of a bluffer,” Misty said, her brow knitted as she looked down at her hand. She had been buried alive and burnt to death, but something about the woman in the woods just reached in deep and pulled at the most ancient instincts, fight and flight.

 

Delia moved from the seat across to the one beside her  and took Misty’s hand, gently easing those tight fingers out.  “I’m not about to let some creepy witch take you.” She frowned.  “I’m going to get Zoe to look into the name Ylva. She feels old. I want to know whatever I can before I get into the ring with her.”

 

The swamp witch looked away back toward the dark skies over the wing..  “She doesn’t seem interested in getting in the ring with you.” Everything about Ylva was disturbing her.  It felt a little like she was swimming in sharky waters with a cut on her leg. 

 

The Supreme put her fingers on Misty Day’s chin and drew her eyes back.  Cordelia leaned in and kissed her, slow, gentle, reassuring. “You are mine.  She won’t get anywhere near you.”

 

Misty gave a half smile.  “If she wears my skin will you kiss her like that?” she teased.

 

“If she ever pulls on your skin I will peel her like a grape and pop her like a tick.”  Cordelia looked up as the pilot announced clear air ahead. She smiled. “No seat-belts,” she purred happily.

 

Misty gave a small laugh.  “Like that stopped you from runnin’ around without earlier.  Incorrigible woman,” she teased fondly, cupping Cordelia’s cheek.

 

Cordelia smiled.  She wanted to take the fear from this woman.  Making her feel safe and loved was everything to her since she got her back from the Underworld. She took that hand with the beautiful long fingers and pressed it to her mouth.  “I would kill the world for you,” she said quietly but firmly. 

 

A breath hitched in Misty’s throat a moment before she let it blow out.  Her fingers pressed Cordelia’s lips. “Just love me,” she challenged smiling at her lover.

 

Delia’s smile spread and she pressed the button that dropped Misty’s seat back.  She stood and pressing her hand down beside Misty’s head leaned in to capture her lips. Teeth drew on her lover’s lower lip before lips pressed again.   As she pulled back, she waited for the swamp witch’s eyes to open on hers. “Forever,” she whispered leaning in to brush lips again. Her hand reached down to lift an armrest before settling on her knees before the most captivating woman on the planet.

 

Since they met their relationship had been one of partnership and respect for what each brought to the table.  Since she came back from the dead Misty had seen a shift in the older woman. She was folded into Delia’s arms always.  Though Delia was happy in Misty’s personal strength, she felt her lover protecting her and occasionally guiding her when she was feeling lost in a world not made for people like her.  Misty knew this woman was home and safety and love.. 

 

The Supreme slid the long skirt up Misty’s leg, her fingers delighting to the play of muscles under that perfect skin as fingertips and nails circled on that sweet inner thigh.  Delia smiled. “Already wet for me,” she purred as she captured the scent of her lover’s arousal. Her fingers stroked over the crotch of Misty’s underwear. 

 

Misty sucked in a breath and edged her hips further down the seat toward Cordelia.  Her eyes closed at the other woman’s intimate touch. She lifted her hips as the Supreme slipped her panties down and away and felt drunk as cool air brushed her too hot flesh. She was always struck dumb by the touch of her lover.

 

Cordelia moved one beautiful leg to her shoulder and ran her hand along it.  Breathing deeply, she scented the other woman, savoring that perfection. Her lips pressed to Misty’s mound before her mouth traveled to the swamp witch’s clit.   She smiled to feel Misty suck in a breath as her tongue drew slow and firm over the clit. She began to tease it with her lips and tongue as she slid fingers into the younger woman. The soft, silken warmth she found there threatened to undo her. 

 

Misty felt as though she were flying as Cordelia brought her to a slow and powerful rhythm.  She rocked on the other woman’s fingers and panted and begged for release as she climbed ever higher.  Cordelia curved her fingers just so to draw them over Misty Day’s g spot. Her fingers were grasped by powerful muscles as Misty’s back arched and she came.  Cordelia slowed her fingers until the little flutters eased. Gently removing her fingers, she smiled as she watched Misty’s face. Soon their eyes met and Misty’s smile mirrored her own. Cordelia leaned in and kissed Misty’s thigh.  

 

“She can’t have you Misty,” she reiterated.  “You belong to me.”

 

Misty slid her leg from Cordelia’s shoulder and held open her arms.  The Supreme smiled as she slid up the swamp witch’s body. Cordelia sat in the next seat, holding hands with her lover.  Misty chuckled. “What’s she gonna do from Wisconsin anyway?”  She frowned.  "Ya really shouldn't pop ticks, Miss Cordelia.  They just dig in."

 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

* * *

 

 

Ylva smiled at the whiskery whiskey scented man beside her.  He was disgusting, but she needed him for a bit longer. Her eyes tracked his every motion.  None of her previous selves had experience with such a large vehicle. He gave her a smile back and ran his eyes over her body.  She stifled a sigh.

 

When she was young, she traveled with her Norse brethren, a part of them and apart from them.  She was a sorceress, a Seiokona. Her connection to the cosmos was considered blessed and when the men of her village decided to relocate to a new land, she was brought along to ensure they did not offend any local gods.

 

When the winter came cold and raw and harder than any they had known in the old lands, the only conclusion they could come to was that somehow their magical woman had done something terrible.  They forced her into a blizzard at night to live or die as Odin and the local gods chose.

 

The gods chose to see her to a cave.  The deities chose her to survive the three days of the storm eating bits of lichen and sucking moisture off the stone walls deep in the cave.  She sang for her gods and gathered her strength...and her rage. When the endless scream of winds came to an end, she stepped out into the sun, her face dark with dirt and her eyes black with the strength of the evil she pulled into herself.  

 

A woman of the natives waited in the glittering white snows of a clearing.  She was a daughter of the gods, a sorceress of her people. Her eyes picked out the Daughter of Wolves as she emerged from the dark of the trees around the cave.  The native woman had a blood stained bone blade in her hand and an animal laying in the snow beside her.

 

Ylva the Wolf stopped six feet away.  Her voice was hoarse as she shouted her intentions in her birth language.  For some reason, this was important. For some reason, the fate was woven into the words and she felt power growing within her.  The native woman threw the bloody bone blade between Ylva’s feet. She crouched and took it up. The woman took the fresh hide from a deer and pulled it around herself.  She turned and turned into a deer, looking back at the dark eyed sorceress from another land before running into the trees.

 

Ylva smiled.  The gods in this land had blessed her as well as her own, and she would give all the gods of the dark the hearts blood of the Norse.  She crept close to the meadow where the great hall of the invaders lay half obscured by drifted snow. Seeing a man standing in the trees chopping away at a small tree he had felled, she drifted closer like heavy smoke just above clean white snow.

 

Sliding close she pulled the blade against his throat, the small woman felled the warrior.  She knelt beside him and placed a hand on the slowing heart as she watched the life fade from his eyes.  Her head cocked as if hearing a distant song. The blade in her hand rose with a life of its own and slid down the warrior’s midline.  It further drew down arms and legs. Lines glowed where the blade had traveled and Ylva reached out and pulled. Seeing a light lift from his body, she stretched her hand out and took it from the air before swallowing it.  Standing, she drew the skin around her. With the light of his mind in her throat, she had disjointed knowledge of the warrior, with his skin, she had her way into the hall, with his sword, she had her revenge.

 

Ylva, smiled as she drew in a deep breath and smelled the blood that lay pooled on every surface of the hall.  She squeezed the blood from the hearts of the Norsemen into Bjarni’s great drinking horn. Licking her fingers, she pulled the skin from her body and dragged it behind her to drop it beside the dogs worrying the flesh of their former masters.  Walking to the crest of a hill above the hall, she raised the horn and poured the blood, a seal on her vow.

 

A deer appeared in the snows.  It picked its way delicately toward the blood soaked woman.  It lowered its head briefly to scent the pool at Ylva’s feet.  The deer rose and the woman pulled the skin down to form a robe as she stood before the invaders’ sorceress.  She held out a hand.

 

Ylva gripped the blade so tightly the leather wrapped around it squeaked.  She looked into the native witch’s dark eyes, mirrors to her own. Her lip curled.  The gods guided and she walked their path. Perhaps this woman might teach her what came next.  The bloody hall, the bloody prints of her feet in the snow were the past. Blood bought her a future in this savage land.  She gave the blade to the native witch and raised her chin.

 

* * *

 

 

The truck driver pulled into a rest station.  He leaned back in his seat and put his arm across the top as he leaned back.  “Time to earn that ride little girl.”

Ylva scooted forward.  She drew down the zipper of the disgusting man.  His grin grew… until she slipped the bone blade into the nearby artery.  Her hand went up and covered his nose and mouth. His struggles were weak in very little time.  She took away her hand while he still lived and smiled as she watched death steal over his eyes.  Her fingers wrapped around the light of his soul. It was pale and frail. “As disgusting in death,” she summed up.  She refused to devour this pathetic thing and released it before plunging her hand into the man’s chest. She pulled out his heart and sighed.  She lifted it and drank the dark blood before opening the truck door and pushing the driver from the high seat into the frozen marshy weeds. Sliding into the driver’s side, Ylva licked her fingers as she drove.  She loved the long hunt. Lots of time for thinking.

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

* * *

 

 

Misty flipped through the tome with a groan, soon reaching the marked page.  She was a natural green witch. She loved following her instincts and making potions and poultices.  Studying was doable. She certainly loved the idea of keeping up with Cordelia’s knowledge, but some of these texts were so dry and so full of extraneous crap.  It was all a little like those old timey European clocks that tracked planets. They ended up adding so many extra gears to make up for inaccuracies in motion based on erroneous assumptions that the things were rendered useless on the regular.  Books like this could be a headache waiting to happen.

 

Misty had just finished the first paragraph and she was repeating a particularly twisted sentence when she trailed off.  She looked up puzzled. There was a strange charge to the air that had her lizard brain clicking on like the pilot on a stove.

 

The little hairs on the back of her neck were standing.  Misty Day chewed her lip as she nervously stood, her hands planted on the desk to steady her.  Her instincts were telling her things she didn’t want to hear. They were screaming them in fact.  The dark witch from Wisconsin wasn’t kidding and she was hunting and howling into the sky. Misty felt like it would take time for her to track her but it would happen.  

  
  


As suddenly as it happened, the hairs lay down again.  Misty lowered her head and drew in a deep breath before looking around.  A worried expression was on the face of her reflection in the window as she shakily closed the text.  She lurched to the bathroom, lifting a cupped hand of water from the tap to her suddenly dry mouth. 

 

Standing slowly upright her eyes caught in the mirror.  She saw a figure in the corner of the glass. Misty jump turned to see Cordelia looking at her with concern from the doorway.  “Misty?” she asked quietly, in that gentle voice people used for talking to nervous animals. She approached her lover slowly. 

 

Misty gave a laugh and walked over to put her arm around Cordelia, laying a head on her shoulder.  “Jumpy,” she said in a faux amused voice. She hummed. “Warm.” The swamp witch pulled back. “Wasn’t expectin’ you back from Leighton Residence for a while.”  She wasn’t ready to talk about what she’d experienced so she tried to play upbeat.

 

Cordelia took Misty’s hand and kissed it before searching her lover’s face.  “Got done early with the Residents meeting. Are you okay?” There was concern in her voice.

 

“Fine.  Just get jumpy in the Academy.  Can’t hear cicadas. You know….my early warning system in the swamp.”  She chuckled and headed over to the desk picking up the text. “Don’t know how Zoe reads these books continuously.  They’re dryer than sand.” She moved over to the bookshelf and slipped it back in curling her fingers to keep the shaking contained.

 

Cordelia frowned.  The swamp witch was trying to play it cool, but it seemed Misty was still freaked and she wasn’t sure how to make her feel safer.  “Dinner?” she finally asked. Right now, what she could offer was a bit of normal.

 

Misty looked at her as if she spoke Pashti.  Eventually, she nodded. “Yeah. I could do with a little food.”  She took Cordelia’s hand and walked with her to dinner, trying to relax into the conversation despite a part of her brain looking around like a mouse that saw a hawk shadow slide by.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ylva smiled as she crouched down to pick up the bones she’d thrown.  Sighing happily, the dark haired witch slid the teeth and finger bones into a small pouch that she lovingly stored in her bag.  This was going to be a good hunt.

 

She did so love a particularly powerful prey.  She could cast ‘scent the wind’, as she called the spell that gave her direction, and a strong witch could feel a small echo of it.  She could almost feel the younger witch shiver at the other end of the directional spell. This blonde witch was living up to the very favorable first impression of the dark witch.   

 

Ylva looked around at the flattened circle of winter brittle wild grasses bounded by a bloody circle.  Picking up a child’s hand from the makeshift altar, she used it to open the boundaries. It really was not necessary as spells for finding went, but the effects on a prey witch could be well worth it.  

 

She hummed as she walked through the waist high grass, smiling at the crunch of the dead vegetation and its layer of frost.  She soon came to the edge of the road where the vehicle she’d claimed so recently sat on a gravel shoulder. The truck, as it turned out, was really quite handy.  Ylva now had plenty of extra hands kept fresh for her directional spells. Refrigeration was a marvel of the modern era. She pulled open a door and walked into the back of the truck.  The hand went into a small crate near the door. The witch briefly considered a fresh skin. The two women held in the back were still alive though obviously in the initial stages of hypothermia.  Ylva poked at the skin of one then another. “Please,” the younger woman begged. “We won’t tell anyone. Just let us go home.”

 

The tall blonde looked at her companion and then at the small woman who had taken them from the truck stop.  She sealed her mouth. She knew a dead soul when she saw it. The only thing gained from making a fuss with someone with dead eyes was a quick death and she still had hopes of worrying the ropes loose.

 

Ylva went toward the wall of empties and selected a bucket.  She stood by the crying woman. “Your soul would be a pathetic meal,” she finally spat out.  The Wolf pulled out her bone knife and decided that it would be insult to the blade to use it for this.  A metal blade flashed out and sliced the younger open. She guided the bucket under the flow of blood. Blood was also very handy.  

 

She looked the older woman over and her gaze lingered on those eyes that were so assessing even as she came out of her drug fog.  “You might be interesting. I think I’ll save you for a bit.” She looked into the filling bucket. The knife flashed again, severing the ropes that held the body up.  She capped the bucket and headed back to the truck cab. Enough play. Time to drive.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

* * *

 

 

Misty chewed thoughtfully on an apple as she sat on the wrought iron chair in the garden.  She was glaring at the bane of her existence … this hour. The same dry text mocked her from the table.  She took another bite. She felt like she fell short just a little bit in the witch department because she was a home made home schooled dirt under her fingers and well stretched boot strap kind of witch and she was determined to change that, but damn if the books didn’t bore her silly.

 

Zoe chuckled as she drifted over with a well stuffed messenger bag and a couple glasses of iced tea with beads of water rolling down the side.  She placed the glasses on the table, one in front of the frustrated swamp witch and parked herself in the other chair. Putting the bag beside her, the council member pushed the hair out of her face and parked her boot against the ornate base of the table.  “You should probably just let me take that book away before you launch into a pyro attack on it.”

 

Misty laughed.  “My control is not that bad.”

 

“No,” Zoe responded. “You have better control than just about anyone but Cordelia, but your temper…” She sucked in a breath. “You just cut the bullshit and go for it when you lose your temper.”

 

The swamp witch put her hand up.  “I swear, even if I lose my temper, I will not cut loose on one of your pulpy friends.”

 

“Har har har.”  Misty pulled some books out of the bag and wooden box.  “I’ve got to talk to you about this Ylva woman you met in Wisconsin.”

 

Misty’s humor dried up fast at that.  She took a drink of the iced tea for her dry mouth and placed the apple carefully next to the glass.  “Tell me.”

 

Zoe looked at her friend, a touch of worry apparent in her eyes.  She gestured at the books. “There is documentation for her going back centuries.  This is the bitch who would not die. Most of the time she wanders into a town and suddenly a citizen wanders back out leaving a flayed corpse in the rearview.  A Supreme, a few generations ago, lost a witch to her. She got a fair bit of info into the Coven journals. Ylva was probably old during Salem times. She may have been part of the Scandinavian colony at New Sweden in the 1600s or hell...she may have even traveled with Leif Erikson for all we know, but that name Ylva, which is Norse, is a constant.  Apparently, she pulls skins off of her victims for the whole walking around thing and she eats the souls.”

 

The studious witch frowned at the books.  “From what that Supreme, Helen Osburne, learned she will catch as catch can on mundane folk.  Snack on the hoof kind of stuff. When it’s a witch, she does something quite different. She stalks and intimidates and generally tries to whip the witch in question into a fear frenzy before she skins them and then like literally swallows their soul.”

 

Misty thought about the witch in the wood.  Her eyes hardened. “She was wearing a witch named Beck.  She was a girl. That… bitch tortured a teenager and ate her,” she ground out.

 

Zoe watched her friend.  “I take it from the fact that I can feel your temper starting to burn from here that you aren’t going to let her get away with it?”

 

“Are you kidding me?  That bitch needs to be gator shit tout suite,” she said, her sudden realization just hammering her fear.

 

Zoe smiled.  “Wow, just wow.  I never realized how cool the moment Bambi’s balls dropped could be.”  She pushed the box over to Misty.

 

The swamp witch looked at it curiously.  “It’s gonna bite or it’s gonna smell isn’t it?”

 

Zoe chuckled.  “If she hasn’t started, she will be doing a locator spell from time to time to keep the hunt up and to freak you out.”

 

Misty rolled the apple.  “She started. Made my hair stand up.”  She pressed her lips. She had given her fear to that bitch and now she was so angry over that and what she had done to that young woman.  

 

Zoe shook her head.  “Cordelia didn’t tell me it had started.”

 

“She doesn’t know.” Misty said never raising her eyes.

 

“Are you nuts?  She’s the strongest one of us and you know she would protect you from anything.”

 

Misty raised her eyes.  “And who protects her? What happened to Osburne’s witch?  She got ate up didn’t she?”

 

Zoe nodded.  “Osburne’s research binge was fueled by the fact that she didn’t know enough to save Liz Parrish.  At first, she didn’t even believe in that hunted feeling that accompanies the location spells. She ended up talking to Ylva in a Liz suit and it truly fucked with her.”

 

Misty didn’t bother pointing out what a Misty suit would do to Cordelia.  She tapped the box. “What is it?”

 

“It has one of those names that you spend an hour frowning at.  I call it the Muffler. It’s like… when Madison cums she screams so she pulls a pillow over her face.  It makes the sound diffuse, lower, useless in hunting and this will do something similar to your signature.”  She saw the look Misty was giving her and blushed. “TMI in the service of explanations…..working on that.”

 

Cordelia came up and squeezed Misty’s shoulder before sitting in a chair of her own with the two other witches.  “Do we know anything useful?” she asked Zoe.

 

Zoe’s eyes ping ponged a moment.  She put her books back in the bag.  “I gave Misty something to mess with Ylva’s homing in thing and a little historical rundown.  You two should totally talk.” She stood with a smile and pulled the strap of the bag up. “Misty?  Remember Bambi did it all with a little help from his friends.” She waved and beat a retreat.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

* * *

 

 

Misty slid open the wooden box and pulled out Zoe’s handmade amulet.  She turned it over in her hand examining it with an expression of distaste.  It was bits of bone and metal and, she leaned in to sniff it, it was also bathed in some kind of oil that made it smell like hamburger meat left on a counter for a week.  She ran her finger along the side. “Fantastic. It bites and it smells,” she muttered as she considered how to wear it with the minimum of skin contact.

 

Delia watched Misty.  She finally just came out with it.   “Any chance you’re up to something or hiding something or….” she trailed off.  Zoe was not huge on confrontation. If she was bolting, it meant there was a good chance that someone would be going off.

 

Misty tucked the amulet in a pocket before she picked up her apple and took a big bite.  She chewed slowly buying time. Cordelia was not just her lover but the Supreme. Basically, she was in charge of a huge ass Ylva buffet and so needed to know everything.  Taking a breath, she decided it was time.

 

Standing up, Misty gestured for Cordelia to lead the way to the Academy building.  Maybe a private venue would be for the best. Gathering up the book and the rest, the swamp witch headed up to Cordelia’s private room in the far wing of the Academy.  She turned after placing everything on the Supreme’s desk. “Ylva is the real deal,” she started. “She finds her victims, swallows their souls and wears their skins. I think we should kill her but I suppose that is your call… maybe not.  Is it my call if it’s my skin she intends to wear?” She frowned and pushed her hair behind her ear. Her brain was going a million miles a minute trying to put everything she learned together in a plan. It was hard...there was something missing.

 

Cordelia gestured to the conversation area near the window.  The light slanted down on the beautiful chairs. She sat down in one of the stuffed chairs waiting for Misty to join her.  “Did Zoe tell you how to stop her?” She watched her lover chew her lip as she busily thought things through. “I know you are afraid of her Misty…”

 

“No!” Misty replied vehemently.  “I am not afraid of that snake. I am pissed off.”  She slapped the arm of her chair. It wasn’t often that Misty got this mad.

 

Delia was taken aback by the conviction in the other woman, not to mention massively turned on by her passion.  She pushed aside her personal feelings. “What changed?” she asked leaning forward.

 

“Feeling her hunting me… Yeah, that made me a little afraid.  A lot afraid. But then Zoe told me how she ‘tenderizes’ witches and I thought about that witch she was wearin.  You know, the one she called Beck? She did that to a kid. She made someone that young, someone just growin' into herself afraid just so her soul’d be tasty.  I am pissed off.” Misty stood up and paced. She just kept thinking about how young Ylva’s skin had been. Ylva was a bully and a murderer and she did not abide either.

 

Cordelia watched her striding back and forth for a moment.  “We’ll find a way to stop her. Stab her, burn her, cut her in a million pieces and spread them from one end of the world to the other.”

 

The Cajun stopped in her tracks.  “That’s it,” she muttered. She looked at Delia, resolve in her face.  “I have a plan.”

 

Cordelia was concerned at something in her expression.  “What’s the plan?” she asked as she stood and walked to the swamp witch.

 

Misty shrugged.  “Very simple. You and Zoe figure out how to kill her and when you two have an idea. I take off the amulet that muffles my location so that she can find me.  I’ll distract her long enough for you two to kill her.”

 

This felt too simple a plan.  There was another shoe just waiting to drop.  “How are you going to distract her?” Delia  asked watching Misty’s face, knowing she was probably going to hate the answer.

 

Misty smiled.  “I let her eat me.”  She walked over to the desk and took a big bite of apple.  She leaned into the desk as she happily chewed. 

 

“No.”  Cordelia ruled flatly 

 

Misty laughed as she looked at the Supreme.  “Stop thinkin’ in the box Delia. Look at my past.  What happened when I burned?”

 

“You used your natural gift of resurgence reuniting your soul with your body and then sank yourself into healing mud.” Cordelia’s eyes opened as she began putting things together.

 

“Zoe said she literally swallows a soul.  Wouldn’t that mean on some level, to her, that soul she swallows is like a physical object.  Havin’ one tear out of her and reload into a flayed corpse at her feet? I don’t know about you but even if it doesn’t hurt like a bitch, I would still be distracted.  It won’t matter how powerful she is if you guys take her when she is busy dealin’ with a pissed off meal.”

 

Cordelia frowned as she considered the plan.  “I don’t like it,” she finally said. She held up a hand to stop Misty.  “It isn’t about what I like. It’s about killing her. Let’s call it Plan B or maybe Z.  I would just as soon not push our luck on your being dead and coming back.”

 

Misty cocked her head.  “Okay. Time in hell did suck massively.” She smiled relieved that Cordelia at least heard her out and while the death thing was not the Supreme’s first choice, it was not being completely blown off.   “I can’t guarantee that the findin' spell won’t freak me out but I am done giving that monster my fear and whatever it takes, she will die.”

 

“I promise,” Cordelia said gravely.  She slid her fingers along Misty’s cheek.  “I won’t let her get away.” She kissed her lover tenderly.

 


	7. Chapter 7

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* * *

 

 

Misty stretched in the bed as she lay back and got comfortable for the night.  She rolled to the side and looked over at Cordelia. The Supreme was leaning up on an elbow and smiling, her hair falling to the side like a curtain.  “What?” she said with a grin.

 

Cordelia brushed Misty’s lips with a finger, smiling at the petal soft feel of them.  “I love to see you strong. I was so worried about you when you first came back but you really… you’ve started coming back into your own.”

 

Misty took her hand and kissed the palm.  “I love you Delia. Thank you for being strong for me when I needed it.” She held the hand to her heart as she smiled at the woman who had her heart.

 

The Supreme gave a sad smile.  “Don’t need me anymore?” It made her happy that Misty felt better than when she came back, but she wondered what her place in Misty's life would be when the chips had fallen.

 

She shook her head.  “Always need you. I am just feeling like maybe I can stand on my own at the same time.”  Misty kissed Delia and rolled her to her back. “Maybe I can even be the strong one sometimes,” she said with a smile.

 

Cordelia looked at her adoringly.  She cupped Misty’s cheek. “Anytime you want,” she whispered, brushing her lips against her lover’s.

 

Misty ran her hand over Cordelia’s skin and kissed her lover with a gentle passion.  She smiled at the other woman’s intake of breath as her palm moved over her already tight nipple. Her fingertips followed the muscles moving in Delia’s stomach to swirl around her belly button.  She brushed her tongue against the other woman’s as her fingers stroked first down the outside then up the inner thigh.  Cordelia spread her legs further as Misty brushed her fingers along her labia. 

 

“So wet for me Cordelia.  I like that,” Misty purred.  She loved that she could make this woman wet and wanting.  The swamp witch kissed and nipped her lover’s throat.

 

“Anything for you Misty, you know that,” Cordelia responded as her fingers urged Misty closer.

 

Misty kissed her again before moving her fingers lightly over Cordelia’s clit.  She smiled at the sound of her lover. Her lips and teeth and tongue moved over first the Supreme’s throat and then her clavicle.  The Cajun lifted her fingers to her mouth and licked them. Cordelia groaned as she watched. “I love the taste of you,” Misty purred.

The Supreme moved, undulating against Misty as she slowly began filling the other woman over and over, brushing Delia’s clit each time she pulled her fingers back.  She wanted this slow and sweet though based on the way the other woman was anticipating her and seemingly demanding more rocking into her fingers, it would not stay that way long.  Misty gave into her urge to mark her lover. Lips finding that smooth beautiful shoulder and sucking on it as she began to rock herself into Cordelia, making a mark, claiming this woman as hers.

 

Delia cried out, her fingers wrapping in Misty’s hair as she marked her.  She might have worried once how such things would have looked in the past, but Misty was hers and she belonged to Misty and there was nothing that felt truer than that mark in that moment.  She was soon past caring even that much as Misty rocked into her, driving deeper. 

 

Leaning in to kiss her lover’s throat, Misty smiled as she felt Cordelia coming closer to completion under her ministrations.  She kissed the Supreme as she added a finger and guided her to orgasm. Delia wrapped around her lover and drew her to lay on her. The swamp witch lay her head contentedly on the other woman’s shoulder and listened to her catch her breath. Their hands never stopped exploring until they drifted to sleep wrapped in one another’s arms.

 

The necromancer’s eyes opened onto the darkness of the night.  She felt it again, the crawling, spooky dangerous feeling woke her.  There was a grave disturbance to her world and all the hairs on the back of her neck rose.  Ylva was hunting again. Her teeth gritted and though fear was a natural response to knowing a predator was seeking you out as a snack, she tried with all her might to clamp down on the feeling.  The dark witch wanted her afraid and she would rather eat week old roadkill with sprinkles than give the monster what she wanted. Misty got up from bed and headed for the bathroom. 

 

Pacing a moment, she looked in the mirror and gritting her teeth growled.  They said that the yelling during those kung fu type movies was about gathering personal power to throw into a punch.  She was growling hoping to throw Ylva’s shit back into her teeth. She wanted the bitch to know how much she hated her.  She pictured Beck and felt her hatred grow again.

 

Ylva gritted her teeth.  She suddenly began to smile broadly.  Now this was interesting. This girl was fighting her fear with so much vehemence.  She chuckled as she picked up the hand to open the circle. This girl thought she could fight back….or maybe she expected her Supreme to fight back for her.  

 

She stood on a rock at the edge of the bloody circle and howled.  The witch had muffled her magic and thought she could stand in the teeth of a brutal wind.  At long last, a prey worth the hunt. The Wolf felt her tired old blood singing. She broke through the tall grasses to leap at the truck.  Ylva laughed and turned the key, tossing a hitchhiker’s bloody shoe out the window as she pulled away. The dark witch licked her teeth as if tasting blood.  The witch salivated and she drove into the night.


	8. Chapter 8

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* * *

 

 

Zoe climbed down the ladder with yet another book and put it on the pile.  Pulling out the chair, she sat down and started reading. One book after another ended up on the pile to the right and a small number ended in a pile to the left.  She shook her head at the way the task was going. She pulled a notebook over and started making notes. The problem with being witches of the New World is that the battles they faced were not wholly of one world or the other.  America had some seriously weird homegrown troubles.

 

Cordelia entered the library and sat down across from Zoe.  She looked at the almost toppling pile of books on one side of the younger woman.  “How is the kill Ylva quest going?” she asked almost afraid of the answer.

 

Zoe sat back in the chair and gestured at the books.  “I have been reading anything that could possibly be related, but I think we might be looking at a hybrid which puts a particularly nasty degree of randomness into any of the tried and true methods.”  She pulled out the sheet she had been writing on in her notebook and crumpling it tossed it toward an already half full wastepaper basket. 

 

The Supreme watched the balled up paper miss and used her magic to put it in.  “Hybrid of what?”

 

“I think she is old school Norse sorcery and something similar to an Algonquin wendigo but…. The whole thing is that she is very different than either of them.  It’s frustrating. I could probably come up with a way to deal with her but it will be overly complicated by the fact that I don’t know which she is closer to.”  Zoe made a few notes on the fresh sheet and pulled over another book. She really wished she could get a peek under the Wolf’s skin du jour to see what kind of thing was walking around under it.   Was she kept young by the things she did or was she an ancient, twisted bag of bones under it? Too many questions, not nearly enough of a survival rate providing answers. 

 

Cordelia frowned.  “Misty wants to distract her to give us the time to kill her and dispose of the remains.”  She hated even mentioning this plan, but Zoe could only give her best when she had all the information.

 

Zoe looked up at the sound of Cordelia’s voice.  “From the way you said that, it’s a bad.”

 

“Very bad.  She thinks that when Ylva swallows her, the resurgence will tear her soul away from Ylva, possibly painfully and that she will use her flayed corpse to creep Ylva out.”  Cordelia looked out the window. She watched some of the girls sitting in a circle discussing something or another.

 

The studious member of her Council looked up.  Her head cocked as she turned Misty’s solution on its side.   “Not such a bad idea.”

 

“What?”” Cordelia turned her angry eyes on her friend.  “Are you serious? What if it goes wrong? What if it digests Misty before she can resurrect?”

 

Zoe held up her hands.  “I’m not saying let’s cover Misty in mustard.  I’m saying that she has the seed of an idea that might just make for a hell of a distraction with just a dash of weakening.”

 

Cordelia stood up and paced.  “Tell me.”

 

Zoe slid her chair back.  “One thing most magics have in common are that rebounded spells are bad and power taken could be turned into power returned.  What if I were to stay here and come up with the way to keep her down, it may involve a hell of a lot of silver by the way and you and Misty start a search for prior victims.”

 

Delia stopped and turned toward Zoe.  “A lot of the souls would be tattered from being digested but in theory, we could pull at least some of the more modern ones out of Ylva and send them on if we have the law of contagion on our side.”

 

Zoe smiled.  “Start with this Beck girl.  Find her body or something else with a strong link with the girl.  Get what you need for several of the victims so you can hit Ylva hard.  Even if she has drawn what she thinks she needed from these souls it will hurt her through both the rebounded spell effect and because Wendigos….and I imagine even truly effed up hybrid Wendigos are always on the edge of starvation and you are pulling its food right out of its belly.”

 

* * *

 

 

Misty took down a silk wrapped box and walked over to a nearby table and chair.  Carefully unwrapping the bundle, she pulled out a black mirror. She had read about using such a thing during her studies but had not, as yet, tried it.  She chanted an incantation low and slow, making sure she had every syllable correct. The black within the mirror’s frame seemed to move and bubble before parting like clouds in a midnight sky.  

 

Beck was sitting in a truck seat staring out through the windshield.  Her fingers absently rubbed at a patch of blood near the corner of her mouth.  She took a sip from the cup nearby. Her brows knit before she looked into the rear view mirror, through which Misty was watching her.  A smile slowly spread. “I think my dinner is trying to find her teeth,” she said in a sing song. 

 

Misty fought her urge to cut the connection immediately.  “Ylva the Wolf,” she intoned. ‘I’m looking forward to killing you.”

 

Ylva barked out a laugh.  “I am looking forward to you trying.”  She looked out the windshield. “And there I am another state closer.  Been a long time since my prey turned to hunt me. I am practically salivating now witch.”  She smiled a shark’s smile and broke the rear view with a crash.

 

Misty lay on the floor groaning.  A spell broken, even a scrying one, could hurt like a bitch.  She eased herself up and leaned into the chair. She rubbed her forehead.  The blonde stood slowly to rewrap the mirror. She looked forward to trying again….later.


	9. Chapter 9

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* * *

 

 

Cordelia was packing an overnight bag on the bed when Misty came into the room.  The swamp witch frowned. “Where are you going?” she asked.

 

Delia looked up from putting folded clothing into the bag.  She reached over and grabbed a tablet to slide into the side pocket.  “You need to start packing. We are working on a variation of your plan and we need to do some grave robbing.”  The Supreme shook her head and reached for another shirt. “I can’t believe that I have a life where grave robbing is the right thing to do.  Wow.” She gave a grin and pulled down a bag for Misty. “Zoe is putting a list together.” 

 

“What list?”  Misty was just plain confused now.  She went over to the closet and pulled out a few items of clothing.  She put them on the bed before heading into the bathroom for her toiletries.  She was so not a traveler and here she was jetting off again before the dust had even settled on her last trip.  She was hoping for some quality time at the Academy and in her little shack but this was her luck.

 

Delia zipped up the bag and sat on the bed.  She patted the spot next to her. “We are going to rip souls out of that bitch and send them on to a better place.”

 

Misty sat down and considered that statement carefully.  “That would definitely hurt her. How are we gonna do that?” she asked trying to figure out how big a boom such a thing would cause for the evil bitch.

 

“Zoe said that a previous Supreme was tracking down all she could about Ylva.  We start with the names of victims she tracked and Beck. Zoe is investigating other flayed corpses over the years as well and looking for the best ways to deal with Ylva’s remains when I get through with her..”  She walked over to Misty and kissed her. “Corpses and the law of contagion. We’ll get bits and pieces from each body and use it to pull the victims out of her.”

 

She pulled a bag of vials off the nightstand.  They contained most of the substances that would be needed for the big emetic spell.  Odds were good that they would return to New Orleans for this part, but she’d rather be prepared in case they needed to do that part on the fly.

 

Misty sat in the chair nearby and tucked her legs under her.  “That would be so disrespectful if it weren’t for the fact that her meals could cross over after.”

 

“Plus, if I had been eaten by Ylva, I would be very eager to ding her any way I could.” Delia added.  She thought again of the dark witch wanting to eat her lover and she hoped it felt like the alien popping out of the guy’s stomach in Alien when they freed the souls.  She was really angry about this creature.

 

Misty gave a laugh.  “You project all this sweetness and light but you have a real temper.”

 

Delia came around the back of the chair and massaged the swamp witch’s shoulders.  “I hear the same about you.” She kissed the top of Misty’s head. “Now finish packing.  We are catching a flight at six ack emma.”

 

“You always say that like it’s early,” Misty teased as she began to uncurl.

 

“How the hell did I end up in love with a morning person?” Cordelia asked the ceiling.  She chuckled and put her bag next to the door. She raised a brow at Misty.

 

Misty stood and took a few more things out and put them in the other bag before drawing the zipper and tossing the bag by the door.  “Happy now?” she asked with a grin.

 

Delia came up behind her and drew the swamp witch’s shirt up and off.  She tossed it to the side. “I will be soon.” She kissed her lover’s shoulder as her hands slid down Misty’s sides.

 

Misty leaned into the strength of her lover and turned her head to kiss Delia.  She turned in the circle of the Supreme’s arms. She slid her hands up those arms to wrap around her shoulders.  The swamp witch smiled. ‘Have we got time enough sleep plus some quality time?” she asked with a grin.

 

“Always make room for quality time,” judged Delia.  She leaned in and captured Misty’s lips. She slowly danced them around the room as their lips brushed over and over.  Delia ran her tongue over Misty’s lip, drawing her deeper into the dance.

 

They soon found their way back to the bed, their clothing shed piece by piece across the floor of the large bedroom.  Delia guided Misty back up to lay among the pillows. She kissed her tenderly as she drew back, Misty whispered “I ended up in love with you too.”

 

Cordelia and Misty made tender love before falling asleep in one another’s arms.  They would rest for a time before the alarm went off and they began their mission to take a dark witch’s life.  Delia smiled as she brushed back Misty’s hair. She adored this woman. The Supreme was so busy watching her lover breath that she didn’t notice a small makeup mirror grow foggy before it resolved to show a pair of eyes.  

 

Ylva smiled.  No wonder the little witch was so confident.  The Supreme was her lover. The dark witch didn’t have a problem with this at all.  It was hardly the first time she left a Supreme of the Salem line bereft. It was always rather fun actually.  Long after she swallowed the soul, the Supreme would be blaming herself. While the Supreme was busy boohooing her loss, a clever predator could come along and eat her way through the rest of the head witch’s little chicks.  Seasons of feast and famine were faded in her memory as there had been so many but this could turn into a feast season for the ages. She licked her teeth and touched the scrying surface breaking the connection.

 


	10. Chapter 10

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Cordelia watched as the ground rose outside the window.  The whole world seemed white and grey below. “Wisconsin winter….again.”  She sounded resigned. Fortunately it would take little to leave this place behind.  A finger perhaps. Maybe a toe. She started making a mental list of what to do when they landed.  

 

The other witch watched her as she began to absently pull out the parkas they had used on their first trip to the Midwest.  “You know where to get Beck’s body?” Misty asked. “This is really just not fun,” she said to herself as she looked out at the dirty snowy fields beyond the windows.

 

Cordy chuckled.  “I tried to find out more but her foster family disappeared the same night her body appeared.  There are a great many unhelpful people in bureaucracy these days. I think our best bet is show up at the police station and practice our Concillium until we get to someone who can tell us where to go for the body.”

 

Misty frowned.  “Is it gonna to be like this for all of them?”

 

“Zoe got me plot numbers for about a dozen others.  They will be easier to get to but they’re the older ones.  We need fresh. Beck is the freshest we know about and Zoe is running down similar skinnings for the past few years.  The fresher the better. The fresher, the more damage to Ylva if we’re right but the fresher, the less likely that people will point out the corpses to a couple of ghoulish gals like ourselves.”

 

Misty tapped her finger on a seat arm.  “We should confirm our suspicions,” she pointed out thoughtfully.

 

“What suspicions?”  Cordelia started pulling out a bag as the plane touched down.

 

“That the souls are inside her.  We should confirm that she isn’t eatin’ em and then….”  she waved a hand as she looked for the right word “Shittin’ out bits of them later.”

 

Cordelia nodded.  “I get that. We can work backwards on that.  Find an older feed and try to wake it. See what happens.”  She looked at her phone making sure there wasn’t anything new listed on it.

 

Misty stood and stretched hard. Airplanes made her feel all kinds of tensed and cramped.  She smiled as Delia’s hands gripped her hips. Her hands slowly lowered to her lover’s shoulders.  She kissed the older woman gently. “It’s gonna be okay,” she summed up for the Supreme.

 

“It’s going to be okay.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

“This is not okay,” Cordelia said through gritted teeth as she drove the rental along frozen roads.  She was not happy at all about the latest.

 

“Beck didn’t have family, Miss Cordelia.  What else were they gonna do?” Misty asked as she attempted to get the GPS saying something productive.  She smiled. “Okay. It’s workin’.”

 

They sped along the roads to the county seat and then found their way to the crematorium.  Beck was being burnt on the county’s dime, so she would probably be lower priority than the family that died in a car crash that week, but they needed to get to her soonest.  Cordelia got out of the car and walked, muscles tense to the door. Her face tightened as she smelled a faint whiff of Eau d’ Embalming Fluid barely detectable under the scent of floral sprays.  She looked around at a rack of coffins and displays of coffin hardware across from a truly startling array of urns. 

 

She thought of Myrtle Snow and the way she went to the stake not once but twice.  Knowing a witch was about to burn, even if that witch’s soul was metaphorically sitting in someone’s stomach made Cordelia want to scream, or punch someone.  She felt Misty’s hand land on her arm. “Breathe,” the swamp witch advised.

 

Delia thought about the woman who was her mother in all but name.  There was nothing right with flames and witches. She strode over to a man emerging from a half hidden door.  “We’re here for Beck. Tell me you didn’t burn her.”

 

He took off his glasses and polished them as he peered at her.  “Are you family ma’am?”

 

“Yes.  Where is Beck?”  she demanded.

 

Misty slid past the angry Cordelia and the slightly flaky appearing man to drift down the stairs.  A young man slid a cardboard coffin on a conveyor belt to sit in front of the ovens. He grabbed a clipboard and started noting numbers from the panel.  Misty reached out with her mind and basically froze him. 

 

Taking the clipboard from his hands, she flipped through the pages.  Beck had not been burned yet. She looked beyond the tech to see two more coffins in addition to the one in front of them.  Lifting a corner on that one, she saw a middle aged man with a torn face. She put the clipboard back in the tech’s hand and released him.

 

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.  “You’re not supposed to be here.”

 

Misty looked over as Cordelia and the older man came down the stairs.   “Have you gotten to Rebecca Sonquist?” the older man asked.

 

The tech jerked a thumb toward the last coffin in line.  The older man looked at Cordelia. “I’ll need you to fill out the paperwork.  We can have her buried near the rest of the family in the church yard since you’ll be taking care of the cost.  Will you want a funeral? I can’t recommend open casket considering her condition but….” he went silent at Delia’s upraised hand.  

 

Seeing Delia use Concilium on the older man, she got the technician again. Misty pulled out a blade and a set of bags.  “Let’s get this done.” She opened the coffin on the young woman without skin and shuddered. ‘Ylva is a monster.”

 

Delia pointed at a finger.  “That one.”

 

“I’m glad she is gonna be buried with her family,”  Misty said quietly. “I am not a fan of burnin’.”

 

“Neither am I.  I can’t begin to imagine how Myrtle did it,” she said sadly.

 

Misty closed the bag and looked at Cordelia.  “At least we could give her this much.”

 

“I myself am hoping for more.”  She lightly touched Beck’s head before closing the coffin.  “I want her to have her freedom.” Delia sighed. “Time for paperwork.”

 

“Yay bureaucracy.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

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Misty felt the hairs on her neck rise as she sat in the car.  She stared into the darkness as if she could make out the figure of the Wolf in the shadows.  “She’s lookin' for me,” she informed Cordelia. Her nails dug into her palms as she tensed against the waves of cold sensation.

 

Delia frowned as she snuck a look at her lover.  “Hopefully, she’ll think you’re running away rather than what we’re really up to.”

 

Misty closed her eyes and tried to focus on her hatred of the other woman.  She didn’t think for a moment that it repelled her. In fact, she got the feeling it amused Ylva but she couldn’t punch her so she would settle for this means of telling the dark witch exactly what she thought of her.  “Maybe you should tell Zoe to fortify in case she decides to head to the Academy to wait for us.”

 

Delia nodded.  “She and Queenie already know to batten down.  I didn’t want to take a chance that she would decide to sample some of the younger students while we were working out how to take her out.”  She looked over at Misty. “Is it bad?” She was worried for the swamp witch though she saw once again that Misty was facing the idea of Ylva with anger rather than fear.

 

Misty considered the feeling of the location spell.  “She’s still tryin to make me feel scared but not half so bad.  She wants me nervous, but knows I ain’t gonna let her get to me the same way again so I don’t think she’s tryin’ real hard.”  

 

The Supreme looked over at Misty and nodded.   She looked at the bag that carried Beck’s finger in a plastic bag wrapped in silk.  “We’ll need to hurry. She hasn’t stayed alive this long by being stupid. She’ll know something’s up.  I just hope she crisscrossed the country enough where it’ll look more like we’re running from her than trying to hurt her.”

 

Misty frowned. “Where to next?” she asked as she resumed looking out the window at the passing terrain.

 

Cordelia pulled to the side of the road and scrolled through the list of old and new possibles that Zoe had sent on to her . She huffed out a breath.  “Seems like she didn’t tend to cross the Mississippi much. There are several clusters on the east coast. This one looks good. Three possibles in the last decade and a dozen older.”

 

Misty took the phone.  “At least it's not all snow and ice in Georgia.  I am not a fan of this weather.” She handed back the phone.  “Switch seats. I’ll drive, you get the plane sorted.”

 

“Yes ma’am,”  Delia responded fondly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ylva’s eyes narrowed.  She closed out the spell and paced the interior of the shielded circle.  Prey ran….away. Prey backtracking to that extent was rare. It was suspicious.  Was the little witch playing games or laying traps?

 

She smiled darkly.  It was merely a delay.  She curled up in the heart of the circle and considered   “What shall I do little witch? Should I follow?” She laughed.  “Your protector is traveling with you. You two would lay a trap behind you perhaps?”  She cocked her head and looked out toward the truck. She rather enjoyed the blasted thing.  Too bad really about some of the blood stains in the cab but really what was one to do?

 

“I should continue on to the city of New Orleans then.  That is where the Supreme of the Salem Bitches keeps her underlings until they have learned enough to go their own way.  Little Beck was ever so eager to go to witch school when she first heard of it.” She smiled as she felt the little motions of the tormented soul in her.  “Isn’t that so little one?” She looked critically at her hand. The end of her thumb had a small split in it. 

 

“Really.  The skins these days are just poor quality.”  The fact that witch skins lasted longer was the only reason that she had not devoured the woman in the back of… Ylva looked up at a long squealing sound.  Her face twisted and darkened as she looked toward the back of the truck. The door was open. 

 

Ylva grabbed the child hand and waved her way through the circle before breaking into a run.  She looked around before climbing in. She swore as she made her way far enough back to see the bloody dangling ropes where the surviving skin suit provider had been hanging.  She hurried back out. Jumping down, she snarled and scanned the surrounding terrain. She howled like a wolf as her eyes caught a bit of brush moving against the wind. The blood trail ran in that direction and left the witch with no doubt.  

 

Roxy pressed her bleeding wrist to her shirt and ducked behind a tumble of rocks.  She knew the evil bitch was close behind and so needed to work out a way to slow her down.  She back tracked slightly and prepared herself and the pry bar she grabbed on the way out of the truck.  

 

Ylva followed the tracks.  She crouched and released the skinning blade from its place at her waist.  She frowned as her tracks ended suddenly. She stood but was struck before she could turn.  The blade spun away. Cursing she scrambled for it. The pry bar struck her again, causing her to roll right.  Roxy grabbed the knife and bringing the bar down again, smiled to hear a crack from the witch. She dropped bringing down the blade for Ylva’s heart.  

 

The dark witch rolled and threw her uninjured hand at Roxy’s blade hand, causing the blade to slice into the dark witch’s shoulder.  She screamed at the insane flare of pain and slammed a hand into Roxy’s throat. The truck stop hooker collapsed and dragged herself away.

 

Broken bones were merely troublesome for the dark witch, but the blade in her felt like it was ripping her to shreds even as it was sticking straight up in the same spot.  Her life and magic were bound up in the blade and for it to be used on her felt as if she were being skinned herself. She looked at the hooker and pulled off the Beck face.  “I am Ylva the Wolf and you will die for that!” 

 

Roxy was inured to a lot, but she almost wet herself when she saw the thing in the skin.  She was a creature born to survive however and knew it was time to distract and run. She got up, stomped on the end of the blade and ran.

 

Ylva screamed and passed out.  She would need more than fresh skin when she woke.


	12. Chapter 12

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Misty and Cordelia sat in a hotel room staring out at the dim glow over Savannah.  It had been a very long day and they were exhausted. The various dead were at rest in a half dozen cemeteries around the area, and getting them dug up and reburied and making sure there would be no inconvenient memories of the events, or the bits and pieces that were now missing from each plot kept the two women busy through the day.  Misty lay back. “I would order us a dinner in, but that would involve movin’.”

 

Cordelia chuckled and patted Misty’s leg.  “I’ll order and you run a tub.”

 

Misty raised a brow.  “That means movin’”

 

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Delia responded pulling the room phone off the little table.

 

Stripping, the swamp witch turned on the water.  She kept her wrist under the water until it was warm and then stopped the tub.  She smiled as fingers slid over the small of her back and then stroked her buttocks.  “Water just got warm enough.”

 

Delia slid her hands onto Misty’s hips.  The swamp witch straightened. The Supreme nibbled at her throat and shoulder.  Feeling like purring, Misty turned and kissed Delia. Their lips brushed lightly at first, an echo of the exhaustion clear in the languidness of the kisses.  Cordelia soon found her second wind and the kisses became more demanding. Misty moaned and leaned in. 

 

Tugging at her lover’s shirt, Misty whispered “Get undressed.”

 

The other woman slowly unbuttoned her shirt and slid it off her shoulders before unclasping her bra and dropping it on the shirt.  Her fingers ran along Misty’s jaw. The younger woman kissed the revealed flesh, before dropping a kiss over Delia’s heart. Her hand slid along the Supreme’s side before sliding down the skirt zipper.  Delia closed her eyes as she felt Misty’s hands slide into her underwear to massage her buttocks. 

 

The Supreme slowly pulled back.  “The food will be here soon. Get in the tub and I’ll join you.”  She smiled and took a robe down, sliding it on. She kissed Misty who ran her fingers over the older woman’s stomach.  Misty looked at her a moment before pulling the robe together and tying it. 

 

“No flashing the waiter,” she teased. 

 

“It’s all for you Misty Day.”  Cordelia pointed at the tub. “In woman.”

 

Sometime later Cordelia came back to find Misty still soaking and almost asleep.  The Supreme smiled and ran a finger along the other witch’s lower lip. Misty looked at her with a smile.  “All pruney,” she said holding her hand up. Delia took the hand and kissed the fingertips. “Time to get out, baby. Why don’t you go lay down.  I’ll just take a quick shower and join you.”

 

When she came out, Delia didn’t find a sleeping witch.  Misty smiled from where she was standing by the window. “It’s a good thing we are so far up,” Delia said with a grin.

 

“Would you care?  They would all be so jealous of us.”  Misty said as she walked over and tugged Delia’s robe tie.  She pulled it free and wrapped her wrists in it. “It’s all for you too, Cordelia Goode,” she purred.

 

Delia kissed Misty, dropping her robe.  She smiled down at the bound hands. “I don’t think I have it in me to be slow and gentle tonight love.”

 

“Well thank goodness for that.”

 

Cordelia smiled and smacked Misty’s ass.  “If you are still standing there when I turn around, you will be nursing a lot of rug burn.”  Delia smiled to hear Misty scramble for the bed.

 

Delia stood beside the bed.  “Turn over and get on your hands and knees.” 

 

Misty smiled and turned over awkwardly, her hands still bound.  “Yes, Miss Cordelia.”

 

Cordelia walked slowly from one end to the other.  “I love to look at you. Your eyes are expressive, your breasts, so beautiful but there is something about you like this.  I enjoy running my fingers over your back. I love the way your breasts swing as I spank you. The glow of your ass, the way you get so wet.”  She sucked in a breath. “You will lower your chest to the bed and keep position until I tell you otherwise.”

 

Misty smiled and lowered herself.  She loved when Cordelia warmed her up like this.  The spanking went right to the core of her and made her body become so damned sensitive.  She braced herself and felt that first spank, the one that was slightly lighter but snapped her focus on like no other.  She moved into each following spank, feeling her ass warm and redden. She moaned as Delia’s fingers occasionally slipped down to tease and lightly pinch, waking her clit and making it hunger.  When the teasing was just at the point of driving her insane, Delia pressed her over to lay on her back.

 

The sheets felt like sandpaper to her well spanked bottom and the heat and pressure combined with how very wet she was made her feel wanton and so hungry for her lover.  “Delia,” she moaned.

 

Cordelia covered Misty and tweaked her nipple.  “Mine,” she said with a half smile.

 

“Yours,”Misty affirmed.  Her eyes closed as she felt fingers slide between her legs.  Her hips moved seeking those fingers, the hot skin of her buttocks adding a little spice of pain to the delicious feel of Cordelia's fingers moving over her clit.  “More,” she begged.

 

Delia slid fingers into her lover.  Misty cried out her fingers pressed hard into the older woman's shoulder.  She rocked into Delia’s fingers as they came again fast and firm.  The Supreme wanted nothing more than to see that exquisite expression when Misty came and set a hard and fast rhythm to get her there.  She curled her fingers deep within the beautiful woman under her and felt Misty coming closer. “Cum for me,” she whispered, before nipping the swamp witch’s shoulder. “Mine,” she growled again as Misty came.


	13. Chapter 13

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The next day Misty strode to the top of the hill and looked down into dense trees on the far side.  They had seen just about everything nature could throw at them lately and it showed. Light colored wood shown splintery through the dark trees where some had been ripped away by the insane winds and lightning blasts of the last storm.  She was surprised to see the damage that they drove through and see so many dark trunks still intact. 

 

She turned slowly.  It was amazing how Cordelia could find the most isolated places just off a road with that GPS thingy.  She kicked lightly at the the stone top of the hill. The creamy rock was almost bright in the sun and stretched out twenty feet on a side.  She nodded and turned to find that Cordelia was on the other side laying out supplies beside the bag she had stored them all in for the trip here.   
  
“Chalk?” she called out.  “Salt?” Misty began walking toward her lover.  She was not precisely ready in her heart to do this, but it needed doing so might as well get it over with.

 

Delia tossed her a bag.  “Ash. If we are playing Underworld tag I don’t want there to be any chance of accidentally leaving our protection.” 

 

Misty took the ash and began marking a large and complex circle.  “I haven’t had tons of luck when it comes to the afterlife.” she said trying to sound casual but feeling anything but.

 

Delia showed her a long white cloth.  “First, I’ll bind us. We go in together and we leave together.  We aren’t going to explore or anything. It’s just a little chat with one of the locals attempting to find the soul of …  Who did we pick? Joanna Harris.”

 

Finishing the circle, Misty watched Cordelia place candles and offerings.  She was not going to say it, but she was scared. Hell had not been a good place for her and here they were, wandering back in and asking favors.  Her hands trembled a little as she sat in the middle. 

 

Delia saw a fretful Misty and sat with her, holding her hands.  “It will be okay Misty. I promise.”

 

‘I trust you, Miss Cordelia.  The underworld? Not so much.”  She looked around. “I hate this Delia.   I am tryin’ so hard to be strong in my own right but just the thought….”

 

“You are an incredibly strong woman Misty.  I am in awe sometimes. The thing is, people can’t be strong all the time.  It makes a bit of a mess if you try. You have a partner who you can lean on and who trusts you enough to lean on you.”

 

Misty smiled sweetly.  “I love you Delia.”

 

“I love you too.  Now let’s see just how much we can screw this woman up before we kill her.”   The supreme waved her hand and the candles around them burst into flaming life.

 

The Cajun smiled.  “Let’s do this.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ylva rolled to the side, The blade was sticky with black blood in her hand.  She growled as she pushed off the ground with her good arm. The other arm hung at her side looking twisted and black from where she pulled off the skin to check the wound.  Dark fluids dripped off the raw flesh of the face that had hidden for so long and from the end of the fingers in half torn skin. She needed to fix herself and she needed to get a new skin suit, preferably before the local authorities started asking questions about a truck parked on an isolated road.

 

She leaned against the rock outcropping.  The blade had made a mess of her. She needed to eat and take a skin and sooner rather than later.  From the look of the tracks, Ylva had spent far too much time unconscious. The dark witch heard a powerful engine from the road.  Better the meal she could catch sooner. She staggered for the truck and the badge wearing skin suit who would soon be investigating it.

 

The cop got out of the car after checking the plate.  His hand rested on the butt of his gun as he eased up on the open back of the trailer. The thick, metallic smell of layers of blood almost caused his lunch to come back up.  The gun cleared the holster and he pulled the flashlight. He shined it as deep as he could and saw bits and pieces of people sitting in black dried blood. 

 

The cop reached for his shoulder mike and missed a couple of times before taking it and raising it.  He screamed as something yanked his thumb back until it cracked. The mic dropped and he was pushed to the ground.  As he brought the gun to bear, Ylva came into view and he screamed. She pressed the blade into the cop and swallowed a bright living soul.  It sat in her throat and she savored it even as she retrieved her new skin suit.

 

Ylva stood.  Her shoulder still burned where the girl had stabbed her and it slowed her down, but this spot was far enough away where this officer’s brothers had no chance of getting here before she was gone.  She awkwardly removed the radio and headed for the cruiser. She would ditch it soon as she could, but the truck was just way too noticeable and she didn’t have the strength just now to handle the people who would come with questions.

 

She got to a crossroads and looked from one side to the other.  As much fun as it would be to run the swamp witch down while she was running, she needed something fast and powerful to heal properly.  Ylva the wolf aimed the cruiser toward New Orleans and the witch buffet.


	14. Chapter 14

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Cordelia smiled as they found themselves standing in the dim twilight filled underworld attended by a friendly face.  “It’s good to see you again Nan,” she said gently and fondly. Her former student looked well. At times, the supreme had toyed with the idea of getting the girl back but really Nan was happy just where she was.

 

The brunette girl was sitting on a column that appeared before them.  She patted it. “Always wanted to be on a pedestal.” Nan grinned and waved at Misty.  She wore a page outfit like it was a general’s uniform and sat relaxed and with a great big smile on her face.

 

“I hate to rush things along Nan…” started Cordelia.

 

“But there is trouble around and you just need to stop it sooner rather than later.”  Nan shrugged. “It’s okay. Sooner I am done with you , the sooner I can go play with Papa.”

 

Misty smiled at the little imp.  “I’m glad you found the place you belong.”

 

“You too.”  She smiled broadly.  Nan turned to Cordelia.  “What do you need?”

 

Cordelia pulled a list of names out of her  pocket. She passed it over. “We need to know the status of some souls.”  She looked on anxiously as Nan looked the list over. “Be right back.” She disappeared.

 

Misty wrapped her arms around herself.  “What if we’re wrong?” she asked pensively.

 

“Then we find another way that is not you being eaten.  Honestly, I am more worried about the possibility of price tags on info.”  Delia looked up as Nan reappeared perched on the column.

 

Nan offered the list back.  “Papa is very interested in what you two are up to.  Apparently some of these souls are very overdue. They are weak and all but they are still being held by a soul that is so so so overdue.” She grinned.  “Papa has some plans for that one if she ever shows up.”

 

“Weak….but still in Ylva.”  Cordelia smiled. “I am relieved to hear that.  Tell Papa we are going to try to send that bitch to him as soon as possible.”

 

Nan grinned.  “Papa would consider it a favor owed.  Not a big favor considering its your asses on the line but a favor.  Gotta go play.” She vanished again.

 

Misty smiled as she looked at the ground which shifted between dead stone, the floor of the Academy and a certain science lab.  “Let’s get out of the underworld and find this bitch.”

 

Rising up from where their bodies lay on the cool ground, Cordelia and Misty moved slowly getting their bearings back.  Delia looked to the sky. “Time flies down there.” She stood and offered a hand to her lover.  “We need to figure out where she is.”

 

“I can try another scryin’ spell.  I got a look at her last time.” Misty offered  as she opened the circle.

 

Delia turned to face Misty with a stunned look.  “How could you do that? It opens a line between the two of you.  She could have spotted it and….”

 

“She did.”  Misty looked unhappy.  “She broke the link. It hurt but I’m fine.”

 

“Are you crazy?  She could have used that link to really hurt you.  If she wanted to she could have…..” Cordelia was angry that Misty took such chances.  

 

The swamp witch shook her head.  “She can’t. She wants to eat me and wear my skin. It sort of limits the amount of damage she can do to me.”

 

Delia frowned and tried to swallow her anger.  This whole situation was wrong in so many ways.  She definitely didn’t want to start fights with Misty but this was hard.  Cordelia had trouble at times balancing her need to protect with her understanding that Misty needed to stand on her own.  She took a slow deep breath and released it to a count.

 

She nodded.  “Let’s do it again….together.  I will shield you so when Ylva breaks the link you won’t get hurt.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ylva lifted a bit of the new skin she was wearing.  Fucking basic model humans could feed her, like a starving man could eat rice cakes but it hardly touched her needs, especially now.  The place where the knife went in was oozing black, even through the skin she was wearing. The black ooze made for a glistening and growing ink spot growing on the blue shirt she wore.  She tsked. “One more human and then I find a real meal,” she promised herself. The police skin she wore barely got a glance from the few people in the rest stop where she parked.

 

She walked to a glassed in announcement board.  It was a long term survival habit to check her face before walking into a bathroom.  People didn’t remember faces worth a crap, but they most certainly remembered a man walking into a women’s bathroom, particularly a man in the uniform of authority.  She watched the reflection to see a pair of fisherman come out of the bathroom and a man and a child walked in. She smiled. Perfect.

 

Ylva ran her fingers down to the snap pouch on her belt containing the bone blade.  She hoped the man would make the next step easy for her by having one of those fancy key chains that locked and unlocked the car he came it.  It would be inconvenient to have to go car to car.

 

The father and the boy were washing their hands.  They smiled at the officer who slowly walked in. The boy turned to look.  “Do you have the police baseball cards sir?” he asked politely.

 

The father got paper towel laughing.  “Sorry sport. That’s just the cops back home.”  He turned to face the officer, the smile sliding off his face at the sight of the spreading black stain on the blue shirt.  “Are you okay?” he asked with a frown.

 

Ylva picked the boy up by his throat.  “I need your hand,” she said to the boy even as she stabbed the bone blade upwards into the bottom of the man’s chin.    The boy screamed. Ylva swiftly broke his neck before getting to work harvesting souls, skin and body parts. All in all, a profitable stop.

 

She was soon driving away, bobbing her head to the radio. Most of the music of this age offended her, but there was just something about early rap that she enjoyed.  Ylva smiled. She would stop soon to track her prey and then continue on her way. A hop, skip and jump away from the Academy and finally a tasty meal.


	15. Chapter 15

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Zoe put the glass animal on the table as she laughingly collected the plate from Queenie.  “Think about it like Euro Disney not McDonald’s number 37.211.” She sipped from her glass and pulled out a chair sinking into it.

 

“Still….a franchise and actually one that almost died a bloody death before it got anywhere,”  Queenie said as she sat across from her friend. “Girl, I just don’t think you can open a second Academy and have it work out well.”  

 

“Keep the instructors answerable to the Supreme and the Council and come up with a unified code for students and we would be able to serve so many other witches.  Remember how fucked it was when we came into our powers? Imagine the suckage for all the girls who can’t squeeze into this one Academy.”

 

Queenie sighed.  “All right. Getting powers sucked for a while before I had training...until I figured out how to burn the crap out of assholes with my power.”  She looked at Zoe who was stabbing and restabbing her vegetables. “And I imagine the vampire pussy was two stops past fucked up. Maybe I can open my mind a little on the subject.”  Queenie leaned forward and frowned. “Is that supposed to do that?”

 

The little glass wolf glowed with a warm light and ran a few circles before stopping so fast it almost fell over.  It turned to face the main hall and sat in a frozen glass howl.

 

“Shit.”  Zoe stood up.  “Call Cordelia.  Ylva’s in New Orleans.”

 

Queenie started dialing.  She pointed at the little animal.  “Girl you teach me that or I will practice pyrokinesis on that broke ass wardrobe of yours.”

 

“Deal.”  Zoe made a call.  “Activate the phone tree and tell the girls that they all need to wrap up anything they are doing and get their asses to the main house now.  Tell them to bring bedding. We may need to bunk down. Yes. All houses are relocating as of now.”

 

Queenie finished the call and started pulling out the bags of supplies they started laying up when the Ylva watch began.  “What the hell is that thing?”

 

“One of the former Supremes had a run in with Ylva.  If fucked her up mentally. She got all kinds of obsessed and she came up with an early warning if Ylva was within an hour.  She used an old boy scout compass. I came across it in the middle of the night. I didn’t have a compass but I had a little glass giraffe.”

 

“That giraffe has a really short neck.”  Queenie started the sage. The smoke curled out as she got the feather.

 

“It changed after I set the affinity.  Ylva is a wolf in more than name I guess.”  Zoe took some salt and chalk. “You start upstairs and I will start down here.  She headed for the main hall and the first of many doors and windows she would be double checking and magically double locking.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Cordelia breathed out.  “We need to get back.”

 

Misty nodded.  “I heard.” She tapped the GPS.  “I’ll drive and you get the flight sorted.”  They were about twenty minutes out from the airport and they both just prayed that it was not twenty minutes too long.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Alyssa sank into the bus bench.  Her feet ached horribly. She had hitched and bused and walked her way through three states to get here to New Orleans.  Pulling a much folded map out of her pack, she carefully unfolded it and tried not to flake anymore of the print off the lines in the paper.  She looked at a street sign. Tracing a finger, she finally unpacked a tiny smile. Almost there.

 

Three months of being the biggest freak she knew before she decided to go to the one place where they would get her.  Her personal mecca was just a little ways away. Suddenly, she was not nearly as tired. 

 

Alyssa pulled her pack on and double checking street signs and the direction the numbers flowed she started walking.  She looked longingly at the public transportation, but she had spent her last bit of money on some donuts on a day old rack at a Piggly Wiggly that still bore strips of fake wood paneling from the 70s.

 

She hummed to herself.  She could smell heavy floral scents and just a touch of salt.  Alyssa looked around curiously. Her mom had told her that she’d been in New Orleans when she’d been been little, but all she remembered was her mom had bought her a stuffed animal in the shape of a shrimp that she called Sherman.  Suddenly feeling as if she were being watched, Alyssa knuckled her keys in one hand and pulled out a handful of nails from her jacket pocket with the other. She had learned two lessons the hard way hitchhiking. The first, always pay attention when that little voice in you started screaming.  The second thing she learned? Be prepared to do damage.

 

A man in his late thirties stepped out of a near alley.  His heather grey t shirt was blackened with ink on one shoulder.  Alyssa knew that this was the ripple on her nerve endings. She looked around.  The street was too quiet even for a suburban neighborhood during the work day. Alyssa hurried across the road and started going down with frequent looks behind.  She drew her strength into herself. Her fear swirled in the middle of her chest waiting for need to unleash. The man walked with a quick pace and soon paralleled her with a wicked grin at her.  

 

Alyssa looked ahead and saw that the next block was boarded up stores.  She looked over to see Ylva crossing toward her. The young witch ran ahead to the next block and seeing no one around and no open businesses she turned.  “Back off man. I’ll fuck you up.”

 

Ylva gave a toothy smile and drew her bone blade.  She was ready for this meal. This girl was not as juicy smelling as the girl she sought but she was a start.  

 

“Fuck!”  Alyssa raised her hand and blew.  Strictly speaking the blowing wasn’t necessary when using her power but it helped her to in some way symbolize what she was using her telekinesis to do.  The nails blasted into Ylva.

 

The witch snarled.  The nails struck her and stuck.  She hated that. The only nails that really hurt were the ones in her shoulder.  The black blood was really flowing now.

 

Alyssa saw the black spreading.  She mouthed “what the fuck” before getting her brain on track.  She took two swift steps forward and slammed the keyed knuckles into the black shoulder.  She screamed along with Ylva as the bone blade just skimmed the skin of her arm through the jacket.  She ran as Ylva went to her knees. The teen suddenly found her wings. The pain screaming in her arm whipped her forward to her goal, Academy and safety.


	16. Chapter 16

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Cordelia swept through the main hall surrounded by girls laying out sleeping blankets and folded blankets.  She saw Queenie ahead. “Everyone accounted for?” she asked as she turned toward the greenhouse. Zoe and Misty followed up behind.

 

Queenie nodded.  “Tight quarters and everyone snug.”

 

Zoe came up beside her.  “We did everything we can think to ward this place.  Even a few of the more obscure things from the notes about Ylva.”

 

Cordelia opened the greenhouse door.  “You’ve seen her?” 

 

Zoe shook her head.  “I had a watchdog set.  She is near but more than a general direction, I can’t give you without a little bio matter from the Ylva in the skin.”  

 

Misty leaned against a stone wall.  “I can’t let these girls suffer ‘cause of me.”

 

Delia looked up looking fierce.  “You are going to stop looking for excuses to do stupid.”  Her face scrunched. “I didn’t mean… I don’t want you dead.  I don’t care if it’s temporary or not. We are going to war and we need you whole.”

 

Misty nodded.  She looked around.  “Where do we do this?  We need serious floor space to make the circle if we are workin’ this together.”

 

Zoe lifted her hand.  “Reason we’re cheek to jowl is I wouldn’t open the music room to the refugees.  We’re good to go on space.” 

 

“So what’s the plan?  We pull her into the room and then kill her or?” Queenie asked her arms folded.

 

“We get her close but we have to immobilise her.  Cast the circle, weaken her by freeing souls and then we try to kill her followed up with dismembering and burying her in silver in consecrated ground from one end of the country to the other,”  Zoe ticked off on her fingers.

 

“So simple crap,” Queenie responded rolling her eyes.

 

Misty was about to respond when they all heard a rising hubbub in the house.  She turned and opened the door. The war council ran for the beating on the door.  Zoe opened the door to catch a young woman in her arm. “Whoa whoa whoa.”

 

Alyssa screamed “Shut the door!”

 

Misty saw the open wound on the young woman’s arm.  “Greenhouse.” 

 

Cordelia peeked out the windows and only saw a couple walking their dog.  She turned to a couple of the girls looking anxiously at their Supreme. “Push something in front of the door until we know what’s going on.”

 

She got back to the greenhouse and saw Misty with a deeply concerned expression as she layered on mud. “What’s your name?” she asked the shivering girl.

 

“Alyssa.  Alyssa Cory.  I was… I was coming here because I’m a witch and I didn’t know what else to do and…  It came after me.”

 

“It?” Zoe questioned even as her eyes rounded with the realization that the mud was not healing the wound nearly as fast as it should.

 

“Looked like a guy but he was bleeding black.”

 

Zoe leaned in.  “This is important.  Are you sure?”

 

Alyssa nodded and hissed as her arm burned. She put up her other hand, the keys still knuckled.  There was black ooze on the keys and her fingers. “It was spreading… the black. I took a chance and blew nails into the shoulder.  The thing screamed and I punched the spot to make it back up. It got my arm with this weird knife and I just ran.”

 

Misty shook her head.  “It’s like the knife she used self cauterized. The wound is open but not bleeding”

 

“Would have to wouldn’t it?  Ylva would scarcely want to wear a sticky skin suit,” Zoe mused.  “The black was spreading before it cornered you?” she asked in an almost gleeful tone.

 

Queenie frowned.  “Zoe….how bout you let us in on the punchline.”

 

“Weird blade.  Venomous bitch bleeding for the first time in records.  She not only wants a witch for dinner, I think she needs a witch for dinner to heal.”

 

Misty frowned as she wrapped the wound that was basically just being held together by the mud..  “She couldn’t heal off a human?”

 

“I don’t think so.  She was bleeding through the skin she was wearing.  Male so likely not magical. If the wound were recent, she would have been wrecked.  An ancient creature gets hurt for the first time in god only knows how many centuries?  It would be like getting hit by a bus.”

 

“I hurt it worse with the nails and then the keys.” Alyssa noted.  “It screamed but not like people. Like something out of a monster movie.”

 

Zoe smiled.  “Can I have the keys btw?  I’ll give them back but I need the ooze.”

 

Alyssa nodded and slowly released her locked grip.  She shook her hand. “What is it? What was that thing?”

 

“Dead wendigo walking if I have a vote,” Zoe noted as she used a knife to scrape the keys into a small bowl..

 

Queenie shook her head.  “Girl, lay off the caffeine after this.  You are just way too zippy for a monster hunter.”

 

Cordelia crouched near Alyssa and took the non oozy hand.  “I’m Cordelia, the Supreme of this coven. We would have done all we could to fold you into our family for coming to us.  We are stretched to capacity at the moment, but for all you’ve done for us by hurting Ylva, by coming to us, telling us….you have earned our thanks and more.  After we’ve taken care of this, you will be home with us. We never turn another witch away.” She looked over at Queenie. “Can you get her a big sister until we can sort something better for her?”

 

Queenie nodded.  “I’ll hook her up with Tamika and then… meet you guys in the music room?”

 

Zoe looked up.  “Give me a few. I think I have a snare spell we can use with this blood.” She picked up the bowl she put her pickings in.  “And somebody grab the sledgehammer. I have a feeling that the knife is going to be an issue.”


	17. Chapter 17

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Ylva leaned her head back and took a rattling breath.  The blade going into her shoulder left her wide open to everything and that damned little witch took advantage.  The metal bits she blew in… nails she thought, the nails went in and apparently they were a hotbed of infection, She felt sick.  This was a state she hadn’t felt since she was a little girl about a thousand years ago. She needed the damned wound closed and soon.  Ylva took a metal blade and used it to help pull nails from her flesh.

 

Each nail drew a hiss and a bubble of black blood as it came out.  Ylva cursed the witches with each pull. She would devour that girl and every witch of that damned Academy.  She would feast so she would never have hunger again in a thousand years. She would strip this damned useless flesh and hunt as herself so she could drink their fear to wash down the meat of their souls.  

 

She pushed herself up off the concrete and looked around at the devastated looking stretch she found herself in.  Ylva moved through shadows from battered building to battered building looking for something that could cover her, however briefly.  She would devour the Academy in her true face, but she needed to get as far as the Academy. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Misty crossed her arms as she paced, waiting for Cordelia to set her up for the scrying.  She was deeply impatient. “Now or never. We gotta find out her real condition.”

 

Cordelia placed a bowl of water in front of the swamp witch.  She started powering up the protective spells to keep her lover safe for when the link got broken.  She was not happy about this but at least it would keep Misty from running out with a baseball bat thinking to take the dark witch by herself.

 

Zoe and Queenie joined them at the bow, standing on the other sides of the small table it was balanced on.  “Let’s see what this vicious bitch is up to,” Queen prompted.

 

Misty closed her eyes using the bond that Ylva herself forged between them to open the link.  Ylva was leaning over a homeless woman. The dark witch’s shoulder was covered in black blood and she favored the arm as she moved.  “Damn Alyssa did good,” Queenie muttered under her breath. The dark witch in the bowl pulled out a bone blade and leaned down with a look of hatred and disgust.  She pulled the blade through the clothes and skin of the prostrate woman, leaning out and snagging something from the air to shove in her mouth before pulling away the human hide.  “Soul,” Zoe whispered. Her face twisted knowing that the people this witch had eaten over the years had to have suffered horribly.

 

“Ew,” responded Queenie.  “Overripe bum soul.” She gave a small shudder as she leaned in to watch.

 

Ylva tore at her hand revealing twisted bony fingers that resembled talons.  She shredded the skin of the man she had been wearing impatiently and pulled on the skin of the homeless woman.  She looked up just as she reached back for the head. She smiled a dark smile from dead looking flesh. She pulled the head over the dark dried up skin beneath.  The dark witch leaned into the cracked shop window. “Hello dinner,” she growled. “I’m coming.” She ran a finger over the glass.

 

Misty smiled.  “About fucking time.” she replied sweetly and broke the link herself before Ylva could shatter the window she was connected through.  She looked around at the others. “Was there something you wanted to add?” she asked the others who were looking at her with faces ranging from amused to gobsmacked.  

 

Queenie held up a hand. “Nuff said.” She backed away from the table and leaned against a wall.

 

Zoe frowned and pointed at the bowl.  “She looked like a bog man. Is that what going Wendigo does to your skin?”

 

Cordelia sighed and rubbed her forehead.  “Let’s focus here.”

 

Zoe stood upright, her arms crossed and her head cocked as she considered.  “She was in one of the washed out areas. You could see high water marks on some of the buildings behind her. I saw a hardware store sign behind her, see if I can get a location.  She just ate so she’ll be peppier. It might not hold her long unless the homeless lady was more magical than she appeared.” Zoe hummed as she tried to think of anything else she picked up.  

 

Misty smiled at her friend.  “Love your brain Zoe.”

 

“Love Cordelia’s everything else better,” Zoe teased back.  She pulled out her phone and started tracking down the store referenced by the sign she’d glimpsed.

 

Cordelia shook her head.  “How about if we get down to brass tacks ladies?  What do we need?”

 

Zoe considered as she searched online.   “Prep the room, lure the bog woman, snare her, rip her meals out, kill her a dozen different ways.”  She looked up and shrugged. “Everything we do best.” She waved an address at the others.

 

Misty considered.  “Let’s get a piece of the homeless woman too.  Fresh meal is gonna hurt more on the way out.  Zoe and Cordelia, you should set up and figure out how to keep the other girls out of the way.  Queenie and I will try to harvest the woman before the police find the body.”

 

Queenie’s face twisted.  “Cut a body part off a skinless homeless chick in a dark alley. Yay,” she said with a complete lack of enthusiasm.


	18. Chapter 18

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Misty hopped out of the car. She looked around at boarded windows and cracked sidewalks with a sigh.  Places like this made her want her swamp. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

Queenie held up the kitchen shears she had grabbed on their way out of the Academy.  “Remind me NOT to put these back in the drawer when we’re done” She looked around the area with narrowed eyes.  “This whole place is giving me the willies.”

 

She nodded.  “I can practically smell that bitch.  I so wish I could feed her ass to gators but that’d be cruel to the scaly little critters.” Misty pointed.  “Hardware store.”

 

“It was across the street and down a little from the sign.  Looks like there’s an alley over there. Girl, I will kick your ass if you let me get eaten.”  Queenie looked around. “Couple of buildings look like they may have squatters, but probably too high huffing to give two shits about two bitches snipping of homeless chick fingers.”

 

Misty chuckled.  “Works for me.” She headed into the alley and almost tripped over the body under a partial layer of trash.  “Here.” She carefully slid aside some old papers that had gotten stuck in the blood that flowed after the skinning.  She looked sadly at the woman. “We’ll send you on. I promise,” she whispered.

 

Queenie arranged the bag around a raw red finger so she could bag it without touching it.  She sighed. “Just like cutting chicken, just cutting chicken.” She snipped with a grunt. “Got it.” The council member closed the bag quickly. She looked down the alley.  “Girl, what the hell are you doing”

 

The swamp witch crouched.  “Let’s find out where she is.”  She pointed at a blood trail at their feet.  She stood and followed it around a corner. 

 

Queenie sighed and shook her head.  “Let’s just get out of here. Delia’s waiting.  Misty?” She listened hard. “Misty?” she called again.  She went around a corner and was hit hard tumbling her to the ground.  Her phone spun away and was crushed under a boot as she went down.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Cordelia muttered “How are they not back yet?”  She looked at her watch. Another five minutes and she’d call to tell them to give it up and just come home.  She looked up as the door swung open and then closed with the click of a lock. Her brow creased until she saw Misty.

 

The swamp witch walked slowly around the outer edge of the room before circling in.  Misty suddenly moved in closer to Cordelia. She licked her lips. “I need this,” she growled.

 

Cordelia smiled and shook her head as she looked through a book and added another herb to the bowl in front of her.  “Can’t you feel it? Ylva is close enough to touch and we have no idea where.” She ground the herbs. “The only thing we have going is the ward at the door to keep her out of the way until we can deal with her.”

 

Misty pulled the zipper down Delia’s back and slid the dress top down to tangle her lover’s arms.  She pressed Delia forward, her nails sliding down the Supreme’s spine ever so slowly. Cordelia purred and arched to the touch.  “We can’t Misty,” she said weakly. 

 

Misty pressed her to the tabletop, sending the bowl spinning away.  Delia closed her eyes as she felt the swamp witch push her dress up and then tear away her underwear.  “Misty,” she whispered.

 

Misty’s hand roughly massaged her ass before striking it.  Cordelia hissed. “Misty, what?” She groaned as fingers slid deep and fast into her.  “Oh fuck.”

 

Cordelia was roughly rocked by Misty’s fingers slamming into her.  Her breath was stolen over and over as Misty fucked her over the counter top.  She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Sounds were ripped out of her throat as fingers were added.  Nails bit into the wood as she felt Misty’s fingers curl into her.

 

Misty leaned in with a dark smile and fisted Cordelia, her other hand gripping Delia’s hip as she drew Cordelia along the edge of pleasure and pain until she couldn’t contain all the feelings anymore.  Cordelia exploded, shouting into the tabletop.

 

Misty snagged a rope that was looped on a wall as she slowly pulled out.  She urged Cordelia onto the table on her back. The Supreme lay back, trust and awe clear in her eyes.  The swamp witch looped the rope binding her lover onto the table. She leaned in and closed her eyes scenting Delia.  “So hungry for more,” Misty growled. Her fingers slicked through Delia’s wetness before tasting them. 

 

She walked around the table running fingers over Delia’s bound form.  Cordelia’s eyes followed her lover. She was rather enjoying Misty’s exploration, even with the bad timing of it.  She closed her eyes and arched, pulling against the ropes as Misty suddenly tweaked her nipple hard before running her tongue over it.  Nails scratched and tongue soothed in a dozen places before Misty lightly pinched her clit almost sending the Supreme over the edge.

 

Delia groaned as Misty’s tongue swirled over her tortured clit.  Her eyes met Misty’s to find a strange expression in them. Fingers slid in to fill her again and her head fell back and her hips shift to take as much of Misty as she could.  “Oh fuck,” she repeated in a groan.

 

Misty’s hand stilled and she ground out.  “Tell me you want me.”

 

“Oh yes, oh fuck yes!”  She was just about singing out her need for this woman to fuck her more.

 

Misty filled her over and over and Cordelia cried out again with the orgasm ripping through her.  Misty’s fingers slowed and then stopped. The swamp witch pulled back to lean on the table with a spreading smile.  “Misty,” she whispered.

 

Misty began laughing, puzzling Delia.  “Oh I should have done this to that other bitch Supreme.  Haven’t had this much fun in centuries.”

 

Zoe appeared in the room.  “Misty’s missing,” she shouted before stopping, face draining of blood.

 

Delia’s eyes widened.  “Nonononono.”

 

Misty aka Ylva grabbed Zoe’s neck and tossed her.  “See you soon ladies,” she said as she left.

 


	19. Chapter 19

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Misty felt disjointed.  She had never felt so completely off balanced and … swirly.   She reached...there was nothing to reach for and no arms. Feeling spirits strong and weak surrounding her, she tried to pull herself free to get back to her body but it was like being in a vacuum and molasses at the same time.  Her heart would have dropped had she a working heart. By eating her, Ylva got strong enough to keep her contained. She wondered how long she had before the power of resurgence could no long unite her spirit with her body. The leading edges of despair brushed her mind.

 

Trying to calm herself Misty flowed in a dim twilight without her five senses.  Reaching out with her magic she felt others like herself. A handful floated in the limbo together.  She could only imagine they were those who had that extra sense like her, witches. She soothed her anxiety and reached out.    She felt another powerful entity but it wasn’t like the others. It felt like a black hole sucking away. Against her better judgement she moved closer and found herself a hitchhiker in Ylva’s senses.  She felt herself screaming as she watched Ylva use her form to have sex with her lover. Soon enough, she felt exhausted by the effort to hang on and drifted away to regain what she could of her strength.

 

Misty reached for the fire deep within her to burn away at the despair threatening to wrap her.  Zoe once told her she was scary when she put her temper into the mix. She pooled her strength and her anger and looked for an opportunity.

 

Ylva patted herself on the chest as if to rid herself of indigestion.  She hummed as she walked into the world. She would be back to her buffet soon enough.  It was enough to take some time to enjoy the expression she put on the face of the queen of the Salem bitches.  She chuckled again. She hopped off the sidewalk and went looking for some entertainment before the party really started.

 

* * *

 

 

Cordelia curled into herself shivering as they met around a table in the greenhouse, one of the few studentless spaces beside the music room designated the primary ritual room.  “How could you lose sight of her even for a minute?” she asked Queenie fiercely. She was filled to the brim with anger, anguish and disgust.

 

Zoe stepped between them as if to head off a fight in the making.  “Ylva’s been doing this for hundreds of years. I am pretty sure we could have lo jacked her and followed Misty with a dozen drones and we would still be having problems.”

 

“What went wrong with Plan whatever the hell letter it was?  Misty was supposed to pop right back out.” Delia began pacing, her mind racing.

 

Queenie watched her for a minute.  “One, she got eaten and that threw her off game.  The girl managed to get herself together after fire but maybe stomach acid is a whole new level of suckage.”

 

“Two,” Zoe continued. “Ylva got her too far from her body before Misty got herself turned right side up.  Queenie?”

 

Queenie got the keys.  “Color me search grid woman.  Cordelia….”

 

“I’m sorry,” Delia said rubbing her forehead.  “I just….”

 

“You get upset when someone hurts your girls.  Eating your girlfriend is about 14 times the intensity.  Just don’t get comfortable with using that tone around me.  I don’t do tones.” Queenie said in a grouchy tone before heading out.

 

Cordelia looked at Zoe.  “We need to get started. The longer that beast keeps Misty from her body the less likely that we will be able to reunite body and soul.”

 

“I’ll go tell the rest of the girls to move upstairs if they can because once we start, Ylva will be looking for meals to get her strength back.”  Zoe headed out.

 

Delia watched her leave and then fell to the table top struggling with her tears and rage.  She wanted to kill Ylva, resurrect her and kill her again. She pressed her hand against her eyes hard and drew herself upright.  “First, separate the bitch from every other soul in her then tear her to pieces.” She pulled out the cooler that they filled with bits of so many other victims.  Endgame time. She headed out of the greenhouse nodding absently to girls filing past as she headed to the music room. Seeing Zoe, she walked around the circle they would occupy once the battle was joined.  She placed the cooler inside and joined Zoe on the other side of the room.

 

“Snare?” she asked seeing the bundles nearby.

 

“Problematic.  She is part witch and part wendigo... Snaring would be at best tricky we don’t know if she is a modern enough witch to dispel standard snares but what her witch side doesn’t know may not snare her cause of that other part of her nature..  This is the distraction.” Zoe unrolled the bundles. They were filled with silver knives and a silver axe as well as other silver weapons. “We have to chop her up and then coat each bit in silver to make being dead take.” She pulled free a bag.  “Asked Alyssa more about what happened.” Zoe poured nails into her hand. “She blew a handful of nails into Ylva. When I saw the molds for some of these weapons in the cellar, I found one that made silver slivers for doing the same thing. Helen Osburne had a serious hate on for Ylva.”

 

“Supreme Osburne and I have that in common.”  Cordelia said staring at one of the corners. “Crucible for the rest of the silver?”

 

Zoe looked at the crucible and confirmed the lights were all indicating readiness.  “One way or another Ylva is going out of here in a full metal jacket.”

 


	20. Chapter 20

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Ylva sipped at a sparkling water and hummed.  “Marvelous, this century.” She looked down from her perch on a scarred bar.  “Don’t you agree?” she laughingly asked the bartender and the four bar flies who suddenly had their day ended in ever increasing pools of blood.  She tsked. “You people bore me now. I think I will go play with the witches. I am certain their leader has had sufficient time to stew and lose her mind.”  She hopped off and landed on one of the bar patrons. Pausing to wipe her shoe soles on his t shirt, she looked around. “Tiny bar. Dim place, decent jukebox and four flavors of sparkling water.”  She looked over at the bartender. “I would come back.” Laughing, Ylva walked along the bodies on the floor to make her way back out into the day.

 

 

* * *

 

Queenie ran her fingers through her hair.  “Up until she ate Misty, Ylva was hurt. Maybe thinking expediency.  But then she did eat. Damn girl, you could be anywhere.” She pulled out a pouch.  “I hate this. Divination is annoying.” She spilled a bag of glass beads she had found in a second hand store on a window sill.  Running her fingers over sections of them, she got twinges of knowing but damned little useful information. She gave a frustrated growl and tried again.  Queenie’s divination was not strong but when it kicked on, she knew it was on. She looked down the street at an old shop. She knew without a doubt Misty was there.  She bagged her beads and headed to the shop she looked through a dusty window. Toward the back she spotted a door on tracks in the back which was a break because the bitch left Misty’s body hanging from a ceiling fixture like a big cat would a gazelle.  “So gonna kill that bitch,” she muttered as she pulled the car around the back of the shop. “I swear if I have to climb on top of my new car to get Misty down, I am gonna call Zoe and tell her I demand first blood rights,” she muttered.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cordelia checked the silver in the crucible again.  She was torn. Start the ritual before Queenie was back bearing Misty’s body and risk her not being here in time or don’t start it and risk giving Ylva who knows what advantages.  She stepped back and stared at the wall. Her mind kept brushing the idea that Ylva fucked her and skittered back. She felt fractured by the knowledge. How could she look Misty in the eye?  How could she look at herself in a mirror. 

 

Zoe approached her.  She knew that Cordelia was suffering, first from her lover being dead whether a temporary state or not and second from knowing that she let that thing touch her.  She put her hand on Delia’s arm. “We need to start. Queenie will bring Misty back here, but we have to get Ylva in place.”

 

Cordelia curled her hands tight.  She had more than one girl to take care of here.  She just had to pray that they could save Misty. She took a deep full breath and raised her chin.  “Let’s start,” she said quietly. She took several silver weapons and a small bag of silver spikes with her into the circle and placed them near where she would be working.  The Supreme crouched down and opened the cooler and began laying out the bits that they had gathered from Ylva’s victims. 

 

“We do this, she’ll come running.  I warded the stairs to encourage her not to go up after the girls.  Gave Alyssa some silver splinters too, given she has a demonstrated ability to spike the bitch beast.”  Zoe took each body part out of the baggies and put the plastic back into the cooler. “Hope Papa is ready for an influx of souls.”

 

“Hope he has a special spot for Ylva to burn.” Delia stood upright and raised her arms.  She closed her eyes and gathered her power and began the focus.

 

Ylva smiled and nodded at passing people and imagining ways she would kill them and how their souls would slip down her throat.  It was just a little light entertainment while she approached the Academy. She hopped the last little distance to the massive black gate with a grin.  She was still feeling weirdly giddy after eating the swamp witch. “Quality eats,” she said chuckling. Her hand was just touching the gate when it rapidly withdrew. She stumbled back half a step feeling disconcerted.  She cocked her head. 

 

Delia’s eyes opened and her hands hovered over the first of the body bits.  She felt the power around her like lightning and she would lay this bitch out by nibbling away one soul at a time if she had to.  Her fury increased the power of her spell and her voice nearly boomed like thunder.

 

Misty felt the despair fading under her anger, she reached out looking for a way out.  She felt one of the lonely presences, one of the non witches begin to move like a dead frog attached to a battery.  It had been a weak shadow in darkness, but it grew and pulled at the molasses nature of Ylva’s digestion. 

 

Ylva fell against the gate.  The wards on it stung but with Misty still within, it couldn’t keep her away from her buffet.  She pressed a hand to her throat. It’s just too bad there was so much kicking around. “You’ll settle down little girl.  They all do.”

 

Misty pressed toward the lonely soul beginning to pulse and pull harder.  She could feel something like what she imagined cheese pulling from a pizza feels like and she felt a raw joy.  She sought out the Ylva feel. She wanted to ‘watch’ this.

 


	21. Chapter 21

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A scream sounded as if from outside.  Zoe looked in the direction of it and flinched.  “It’s here,” she mentioned as Delia moved to the next bit.  Zoe poured the splinters into her hand. She would use Alyssa’s trick to slow Ylva down long enough for Zoe to deploy the big knife on the monster woman.   She pushed a deep breath out between her teeth and crouched facing the door. 

 

Queenie drove like a madwoman and soon flew up the driveway.  She hopped out and jumped at the sound of a scream from the front.  “Faster, faster.” She threw open the back door and pulled on the blanket that held Misty’s skinned body.  Her face twisted at the trail left in her car. “My. New. Car!” She pulled the blanket again and freeing the bundle from her back seat pulled her dead friend toward the side door, cussing all the way.

 

Ylva gritted her teeth and pulled herself off the sidewalk.  The wards still didn’t have the power to stop her, but there was a new sensation of pain running through her body.  She pressed her throat again. “Oh no you don’t.” She forced the gate open and started down the path. 

 

Misty felt joy at the pulling free of her fellow prisoners soul.  Ylva was up against her Supreme. If Ylva was hoping to break Delia by playing mind games and bondage ones as well, then she was sorely mistaken.  The first soul freed was older and weaker, Misty gathered herself, as stronger ones pulled from Ylva’s gullet she knew she could pull herself out. She started reaching and stretching herself seeking the break outs and her chance to get back to her own body.  She sincerely hoped her body was nearby.

 

Ylva lurched and fell to her knees as she felt herself diminished.  Her eternal hunger ramped up like a fire hit by a stream of lighter fluid.  The scream was as much rage as pain now. She growled and struggled up the stairs to find the door of the Academy.  She hit the door feeling wards flicking at her as she went. Her eyes were inhuman as she crouched in the entry hall.  Her nose raised up looking for food to put right whatever was happening to her. She howled in preparation to devour everything on her way through this nest of vipers.  

 

Misty pushed as another soul tried to break free.  She felt a little give but it wasn’t enough. She fired herself up more for another go.  

 

Queenie pulled the blanket along.  She heard the howl and doubled down on her speed leaving behind a trail from the skinless body.  She broke into the hall and spotted a demented looking Misty. “Fuck! Girl losing your skin was not enough weight.”  She tugged harder and hit the music room door at full speed.

 

Zoe almost threw the silver but stopped long enough to register who came through the door.  She watched Queenie pull the body around the edge of the circle and crouch down catching her breath.  Zoe fired as the next body through the door turned out to be Ylva in full Misty skin. The silver slivers flew through the air and peppered into flesh as another soul pulled free.  

 

Ylva screamed inhumanly as the silver sank in.  It wasn’t the magic bullet, but it hurt like a bitch and could conceivably contain her.  She heaved in a breath and let loose with a howl that had made soldiers on both sides of the French and Indian War lose control of their bladders.  She crouched and sprang at the witch with the silver and felt herself fly backwards into the wall. She hit the floor hard. Pushing herself up, Ylva snarled.  She pulled the Misty skin off and tossed it to the side. Her dark twisted physical side bared teeth that shown white and sharp from black, dried out lips. “Dinner,” she snarled and moved slowly around the circle.  

 

Queenie realized that with Delia actively casting they couldn’t open the circle for her so she started keeping the circle between her and the beast.  She almost fell over the Misty skin when she had to pick up the pace. Queenie yelled in triumph as another soul tore free causing Ylva pain and apparently weakness.  She yelled again to see Zoe hit Ylva with a silver throwing knife. 

 

Zoe frowned realizing that the silver wasn’t doing enough.  She looked at Queenie and pointed at the skin. “Pouch,” she yelled before turning back and throwing half the silver weapons at the dark witch.  Queenie reached into the skin and came out with the bone knife. Zoe saw Ylva’s eyes widen. “Keep her from the door!” 

 

Queenie huffed out a breath and planted near the door.  “Come on up bitch. I’ll show you how we do things in my neighborhood.”  She adjusted her grip on the ancient knife. “Hurry up ladies.”

 

Misty felt another push away and the thing she thought of as Ylva’s soul crumbled a little more and the walls all around were weakening.  The witch cluster was pushing together. Misty joined her strength to the cluster and suddenly souls were not just being pulled out...those with the juice were pushing out joined by the swamp witch.  

 

Ylva howled her pain and weakness to the stars.  She needed to eat now or crumble to dust. She rushed Queenie.  The council member slashed with the bone blade before Ylva wrestled it away.  The Misty body slowly stood as Ylva ran into the hall to be skewered on a candelabra.  

 

She slashed with the bone blade but the iron piece pressing into her kept her just a hair too far back.  Alyssa smiled. “Say hello to my new sisters,” she said as the young women pressed in. Two with garden tools pinned Ylva’s arms to the wall.  Alyssa’s eyes widened at dead Misty walking around without a skin, but she continued to try to keep the wendigo pinned along with all the girls from upstairs.  


	22. Chapter 22

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Queenie came out into the hall as Misty plucked the blade free from Ylva’s fingers.  “Honestly, I want to say damn girl but who to start with.” She smiled at the skinless witch.  “Filet her.” She really really didn’t want to miss out on chopping the monster up, but really how much fun is slicing up beef jerky.

 

Misty looked at her friend.  “We free them first.” she ground out.  She leaned heavily and bloodily against a wall.  She felt all sticky and realized it was from blood trying to pump through a body without a proper skin.

 

Joanie, one of the younger students stepped forward.  “One mega batch of Miss Misty Day’s magic healing mud coming up.”  She ran off. She was happy to do this for her idol. It wasn’t every day she had a chance to trot out her best magic so far.

 

Ylva tried to break free but the souls leaving her was breaking her down piece by piece.  Her struggles were weaker and weaker. She stopped moving as the bone blade traveled along her arm.  She snarled. “Wolf backed into a corner is death.”

 

Misty smiled….hard to tell without skin but a smile it was.  “All the witches in you broke out. It’s just the weak meals you still have left.”  

 

Ylva floundered like a fish as more souls were freed.  Her bog man appearance started flaking. “Kill you,” she hissed.

 

Queenie flipped her hair.  “Tired ass threats from an overdue corpse.  Girls? As soon as she is down, we bind her with silver and drag her to the music room so Cordelia can get her own back.”

 

Misty looked over her shoulder.  She pushed herself off the wall to find her lover.  She wanted to make sure she was okay and then lay in mud until she healed.  Her feet felt slick with blood and so she walked slowly and carefully. 

 

Ylva sneered at her.  “I had her. She isn’t worth it.”

 

Misty stopped and moved in.  Ylva bared her teeth. The swamp witch threw a savage punch backed by telekinesis.  Ylva didn’t have front teeth to bare anymore. Misty shook her hand and stumbled back to the music room trusting Queenie and the students to keep Ylva pinned.

 

Zoe nodded at Misty, unwilling to distract Cordelia who was rapidly running out of pieces to call with.  She came to the edge of the circle. “Ylva?” she asked quietly. She was worried seeing her friend was leaving snail trails of blood without her skin.

 

“She’s been stuck to a wall with a pitchfork and one of those heavy tined sort of raky things.  Queenie’s supervisin’.” Misty held up the blade. “Got her toy.” 

 

Zoe smiled.  “She will be done with souls in a minute and then we get to use that and silver to chop the bitch up.  Feeling up to a little more fun before mud?”

 

“I would feel better if dust weren’t gettin’ all up in my flesh but shit… better dust than flies.  Let’s finish this.” Misty touched the raw flesh on her face and hissed lightly.

 

The council member looked back at Delia.  “Last finger. That’s as weak as we can make her.  The rest will be released when we kill her and bury the bits.” 

 

Cordelia released the circle and turned to see a skinless Misty.  She blinked back tears. “You’re alive.”

 

“More or less,” Misty managed.  She was not feeling at her best, but seeing Cordelia looking at her like that made her feel like a superhero. 

 

Delia moved closer.  “If I hug you...will it hurt?”

 

“Hurt more if you don’t.”  Misty eased forward with that strange lipless smile.  She knew what happened between Delia and Ylva but she knew she thought it was her.  A part of her had thought Delia would know the difference but that twinge of hurt was overwhelmed by love for her Delia.

 

“Mmkay.  Thinking I’m just gonna...yeah.”  Zoe slipped out. “Don’t be long,” she called out.  Zoe looked at Ylva pinned to the wall and a bunch of angry students surrounding her.  She waved at Alyssa. “Thanks for the nail notion,” she said as she indicated the slivers in Ylva’s chest.

 

Ylva’s dried flesh continued to flake, her teeth slowly starting to regenerate. A low growl continued to roll out of her chest as black ooze dripped from the many punctures. Zoe looked at Queenie.  “The teeth?”

 

Queenie chuckled.  “Misty got pissed off and punched her.”

 

Zoe cringed.  “I really never want to piss her off.”  She moved in closer. Shifting the blade to her other hand, Zoe looked the dark witch over.  “Girls. We have some nasty work ahead. If you want to be counted out, head back upstairs.” Seeing that the girls stayed put, she smiled.  “Okay. Any of you ever joint a chicken?”

 

“I can teach them,” Queenie offered.  “Most of our chickens came in jointed before the owner went cheap and then we had to break ‘em up ourselves.”  She accepted the bone blade and the silver blades that followed. “How big you want the pieces?”

 

“Might have to break the longest bones but the rest would fit the crucible.  Everyone holding Ylva stay put. Three on knives with Queenie. The rest are fire bucket brigade.  Chop a piece pass it on. Last one in line dumps a piece in the silver and I will pull it out. Next piece goes in.”  Zoe looked at Ylva. “This is gonna hurt. A lot. Good. Enjoy you psychopathic bitch.”

 

Ylva struggled.  “You can’t stop me.”  She pulled hard at the tines in her arms.  A rare panic was starting to form. She hadn’t known fear since the great storm when she was still human

 

Queenie laughed.  “Zoe does her research.  Pretty sure she can.”

 

Zoe smiled and patted Queenie’s arm.  She watched as Cordelia guided Misty out.  Delia looked around. She smiled. “My girls,” she said proudly.  Most of the students responded by standing taller. She looked at Zoe.

 

“I got this.  Joanie is waiting for you two in the greenhouse.”  Zoe circled her finger. “Bucket brigade get ready.  Knife squad with Queenie. Die painfully Ylva courtesy of Supremes Osburne and Goode.”  She headed into the Music Room followed by more than half the girls. 


	23. Chapter 23

* * *

* * *

 

 

Cordelia paced for hours in her room, occasionally picking up this picture of Misty or that book she had been studying.  It seemed a million years ago that normal went out the window. Well, their version of normal at any rate. She looked at the dress she had been wearing when Ylva fucked her in the greenhouse.  Flames began to rise from it. She was so angry and broken feeling after. She still felt a little brittle. The Supreme stomped on the ashes of the dress.

 

Moving down the stairs in the dark Cordelia headed for the greenhouse.  A pair of students sat studying together near a large tub filled with rich earthy smelling mud.  They whispered, heads almost touching as they pored over a book. One looked up startled as Cordelia drew closer.

 

The diminutive brunette poked her friend and they both stood up.  “Supreme,” they chorused respectfully, and quietly.

 

Delia chuckled.  “I’ll take this shift girls.  You two head out.”

 

She waited for them to leave and then crouched by the Misty sized mud tub.   The swamp witch was out cold exhausted and barely visible under the healing mud.  Cordelia moved a chair to beside the tub and sat. Her fingers reached for the mud, then moved to briefly rest on the metal before pulling back to fold into her lap.  

 

Her hands came up suddenly to press her eyes.  A sob came out. She pressed her mouth. The tears now rolled freely.  “I almost lost you,” she whispered. Something else bubbled up. “I...Ylva fucked me.  I thought it was you, but I should have known. I love you more than my life and today...How do I begin to deal with today?”

 

Her sobs and declarations of love and self recriminations lasted deep into the night.  Another pair of students relieved her just before dawn. Cordelia’s fingers touched the mud and she quietly left.  She felt slightly lighter getting it all out but she knew that she would need to say it all again and again before she could move on.  She would need to say it out loud again when her love was awake enough to hear it and be prepared for her response, whatever it was. A fear squeezed her her heart over and over.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Misty smiled.  She was dressed in black and looking around at the students of the Academy led by Cordelia.  They made their way into St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 with great ceremony. When Ylva had been parted and dipped in silver, the girls were separated out into teams and sent flying to some of the most famous cemeteries in the world.  

 

Ylva’s remains were in cemeteries which were unlikely to ever be turned into a parking lot or high rise.  This, the skull was the last body part. Zoe carried the silver covered blade to be placed in the crypt where Supreme Osburne lay before the skull was buried.

 

Cordelia guided the girls to surround a crypt.  She nodded at the gatekeeper who unlocked it. Stepping in Cordelia held out her hands.  The silk wrapped bundle containing the blade passed hand to hand until the Supreme took it and moved to the side of Osburne’s remains.  Delia smiled. “Because of you, the coven is safe. Misty is safe. Rest safely knowing Ylva is gone and your girl is free to pass on.” She looked up at a sound and saw a fading shade.  She gave a nod of acknowledgement to see it echoed. “Thank you,” she whispered.

 

After the burial of the skull, the students headed home.  Cordelia slipped her arm through Misty’s with the slightest of hesitations.  “How’s the new skin?” she asked smiling. They had held off this last set of placements until Misty rose from the mud.  Delia had visited her everyday but felt like she had held her breath until the moment Misty had finally emerged. She looked at the woman beside her wearing huge shades and a hat to shade her still delicate new skin.

 

Misty chuckled.  “Gonna burn like a piece of bacon in the fire if I don’t get out of the sun.”  She curled her fingers in the thin black gloves willing the skin not to be so sensitive.  

 

Cordelia opened the door of the car for her lover.  “Hop in.” She went around to the other side. She smiled happily as she drove knowing Misty was feeling better.  

 

“When it began,”  Misty started. “I felt scared and alone.  Then I was mad and thought I could do it alone.  In the end it was every one of us.”

 

Delia’s eyes flicked over to her lover and back to the road.  “We’re more than a coven. We are one big dysfunctional family.”  Cordelia chuckled and drove toward the Academy.

 

“You and I?” Misty prompted.

 

The Supreme sucked in a breath.  “I’m so sorry about what happened with Ylva,” Delia said sadly.  “I don’t know how I didn’t know.” She had told Misty before but she still didn’t feel absolved.  She feared that she would carry her guilt to the Underworld.

 

Misty touched her hand and smiled to feel it turn to grip hers.  “Most people don’t expect to have sex with someone wearin’ another person like a pelt,” she joked.

 

Delia chuckled.  “True enough.” She looked over at Misty.  “No more scared and alone. Okay?”

 

“Very okay.”  She smiled as they got to the Academy.  “Any Supreme duties today?”

 

“Schedule’s free as of now.”

 

Misty took a deep breath.  “Then take me to your room and make me believe it’s me and only me.”

 

Cordelia led her up to her room.  She gently pulled off the big glasses and the hat, putting them aside.  She smiled at Misty. “Only you,” she said gently. Her fingers trailed lovingly over newly grown skin.  She kissed her lover, tentatively at first and more demandingly as it became clear that Misty wanted this touch, this connection.

 

Misty pulled Delia’s clothes away.  They moved in a slow dance to the bed and lay back tangled in one another.  Misty mewed as fingers brushed over skin with new grown nerves. She was loved slowly and carefully.  She gasped as lips brushed her collarbones and fingers moved over her inner thigh.

 

Delia ran her lips down to Misty’s chest, resting them above her lover’s heart.  She felt so blessed to still be able to taste this skin, to feel this hummingbird heart under the skin.  Brushing Misty’s clit, she pressed her fingers into her lover, slowly. She leaned up on an elbow, watching her swamp witch’s face as she used her fingers to raise her lover higher.  “I love you,” she whispered.

 

Misty’s eyes opened and her fingers curled into Delia’s hair as her leg wrapped around.  “Love you,” she breathed. She sucked in a breath as a finger joined the others. Even with slow gentle touches, she was so close to cumming.  She pulled Delia into a fierce demanding kiss. Cordelia's fingers answered.

 

The Supreme changed the way her fingers moved through her lover’s hot wetness.  She savored the feel of Misty clinging to her and urging her on. Ylva had tried to take something precious from her and now she was reclaiming Misty.  She felt the swamp witch teetering on the edge of her orgasm and Delia guided her lovingly over.

 

Misty clung to her lover in the aftermath.  “Never alone again.” Delia smiled and nodded before her eyes rounded in surprise as the other witch rolled her over.  “Never alone again,” she said in a rising voice as Misty began to return her touches with interest.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nan clapped her hands.  “Told you Papa. They sent us Ylva the Wolf.”

 

Papa fondly stroked Nan’s hair.  “So they did little one.” He looked at her.  “Let’s play with her, shall we?”

 

Nan hopped off a short wall and waved a bone knife.  “How many times do you think I can skin her?”

 

“I have learned, little one, not to underestimate you.  Go and play.” He chuckled richly as the young girl went to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment on this story. Comments and Kudos are a writer's fuel. :)


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